RESEARCH
Having never heard of kickstarter before, I spent a considerable amount of time looking through different projects that were in place or had been carried out. It was interesting to see what projects tended to work well and which were unsuccessful at reaching their targets. These were the two final concepts I was left to choose between, both offered ethical and humanitarian drive behind their ideas and this was something I wanted to work with. As the branding for the bread kitchen was already quite strong I felt that I would be at a disadvantage to start this and try to improve it. The first project however I feel has a lot of room for improvement and development.
(Above) This is an illustration by Tom Edwards seen in a children’s colouring book. The use of grey scale on unhealthy foods is a way of teaching children the correct way to eat and how to have a balanced diet. It is presented in a fun way that always children to interact by colouring in the healthy foods with the bright coloured crayons provided. The illustrations are turned into characters making it funny yet educational for young kids. (Left) are prints created by Christopher Dina. These immediately caught my eye with the vibrant colours used over the eight different pieces. I took great inspiration from the use of colour here, using just a few colours on each piece works in a really striking format. The shapes are bold and simple and the use of symmetry makes it look balanced and even. The only one I didn’t feel fit in was the top right. Below are two examples of other garden companies. I did a generic google search to look at other branding of companies with similar drive behind them. I found that on the whole I didn’t like any of the designs, they were all very simple but looked amateur and all used green as the dominant colour with a flower or other plant as the decoration around the name. They all do the job to convey the company just not in the best way.
Looking at the mission statement by HFTC is something I think is really important as I feel that researching their goals and aims will help me to gain a better understanding of the morals and motives that they are enforcing through this project. From their mission statement I have gathered that they are a family based company and their main goal is to give youth a new direction and a form of role model scheme.
As a main part of my research I looked into all areas of the charity and what they had to offer. I These are the rewards on offer regarding how much you pledge to the charities donation post. The design of these are quite mundane and have a strange combination of photography and digitally created images. This can be a secondary item for me to develop continuing the theme of my logo design final image.
INITIAL DESIGNS
When starting to get my ideas together I began by sketching out a few ideas on paper to get a feel of how I want the feel of my design to come across. I want it to appeal to children as well as their parents, I want it to look fun and exciting and represent the morals of the company. Bright colours I think are essential to introduce children to somewhere that offers a vibrant atmosphere and a team building approach. (Right) I began to take photos of fruit that I had dried out for printing purposes, I wanted to see how I could incorporate a new form of media into my design to continue my experimentation further. I think the fruit looks really fresh and shows positive and healthy connotations about the charity project.
(Above) I began to use some of my very initial ideas to create patterns or repetitions to just play around with how this could work as a possible background or panel for any digital or print publications like a website or a book that advertises the charity. I like it to look bold and stand out to get attention.
(Below) I created a lot of initial designs based around mainly carrots or oranges, both of these are grown at the charity base in Chicago so both are equally as appropriate, however I think growing carrots is more of an obvious connotation to gardening. I developed a whole range in preparation for my crit.
DESIGN CHOICES
Choosing the font was something I found took me quite a while. I eventually went with the second one up ‘In Your Face Joffrey’. Although I don’t particularly like handwritten typefaces likes this I felt that it relates to children more and would appeal to them and their parents more appropriately.
Deciding which direction to go in with the type of logo I used was a long process. I think I visually preferred these but they weren’t as child friendly as the others. However when I was developing these opacity became a big feature as to how well they would work. Both the logo and the background were competing against each other and so it was hard to make the logo stand out and the background more subdued.
Making decisions about small factors of my logo took much longer than I expected, I constantly changed the colours of the typeface around and also larger colour blocks such as the carrots. I decided eventually that the green of the carrots made the bottom of the logo feel quite heavy and dominant. This was enforced by having the orange of the carrots quite dark and so I altered this so it was more balanced.
As I was experimenting with processes I decided to use my dried fruit and some red acrylic watered down to make some prints. I wanted to create something handmade to enhance the feeling of this project and charity being predominantly hands on for young children and teenagers. This gives the feeling of getting your hands dirty and becoming very practical and fully involved in the projects. This design was one that I really liked because it looks so simplistic and effective. However I have lost the vector animation and fiction feel which I think is also very appealing to young children. I raised this in my crit and I was advised to go with my other idea.
When it came to making my final logo I was choosing between three sections; carrots, orange and cityscape. I had to try a series of combinations to see which of these worked the most successfully , as there were so many combinations this took a long time, I agreed on the top left design as it conveys the message the most clearly.
Once I had got my basic colour scheme I found out the cmyk percentages and also created a web version. This allowed my logo to be versatile in terms of where it could be seen whether it be a printed advertisement or a logo on the website. As the logo is a vector created in illustrator it is also able to be scaled to any size. The typeface doesn’t work well below 12 pt but the rest of it can be altered accordingly and I figured that the type can be moved below if it doesn’t fit with the size. It works well scaled up and so will be appropriate for any sort of merchandise or branding on objects or clothing.
FINAL DESIGN/CONTEXT
In a ‘club’ or activity group a uniform is sometimes often available, I believe in this case it is necessary. In such a hands on project the kids would be bound to get messy and so having a uniform would stop them from ruining their own clothes. I tried it on different colours and styles but as these are aimed at the children I think the first design would be more accepted by them rather than the two more plain t shirts.
As this is a charity and consequently runs on donations I think it could be a good idea to create small gift ideas that can be purchased and use the money to go to the funding of HFTC. These gifts would have to be relevant to what the children do at this gardening activity centre so plant pots would be ideal to present the logo on and to look aesthetically professional.
This is my final logo design, I eventually decided that I would have a bottom heavy logo as I just felt that it was better to look at. Putting the text inbetween the two halves makes the text become part of the logo and therefore means that this is easier to then incorporate the name into other designs when it is already part of the logo. I think the oranges and greens really show strong representations of nature and health. Being healthy is a strong message to communicate to young children, it is something they need to be taught and so this is a great scheme to do so. However on paper it could sound quite boring so this is why the logo needs to be light hearted and welcoming and show the creative side to this project and charity.
Another useful item at a gardening centre would be an apron. This would preferably be one with pockets to keep items in, this is a simple design as I felt if I had gone with the same design as the t-shirt the apron would have had to have been white, this would get dirty very quickly. a quick easy tie at the back would be handy for young children.