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Visual Development Guide
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Visual Development Guide
INTRODUCTION This Visual Development Guide is about our new logo. We review AOL’s logo history and introduce our logo exploration and development. At the end, we will show our new logo standards.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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LOGO RESEARCH Our Mission
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Logo History
P.12
Visually Similar Logos
P.14
LOGO SKETCHES Logo Exploration
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Logo Development
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LOGO STANDARDS Final Logo Refinements
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Finalization of Logo Anatomy P.38
01 LOGO RESEARCH Our Mission Logo History Visually Similar Logos
Visual Development Guide
Logo Research
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Visual Development Guide
Logo Research
OUR MISSION
A PLACE TO GO FOR THE BEST CONNECTIONS We keep our goal that help our consumers create maintain personal connections and create a new visual system in order to engage our consumers. Based on the goal of AOL, our new brand is not just about online making connections through Internet, but also forming connections in person.
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LOGO HISTORY AOL (originally known as America Online) is an American multinational mass media corporation based in New York, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. The company owns and operates websites such as The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget, products, and services, which it offers to consumers, publishers, and advertisers.
1983
This logo image comes from an old advertisement for the company, which sold a service called GameLine.
Visual Development Guide
1991
The company was well on its way to building an empire of subscribers who would pay to access its platform.
Logo Research
2003
This was the last set of logos before the company dropped the name America Online.
2005
Because the company no longer wanted to be known as an access point, but instead a media brand, it needed a logo that could be a platform, according to the designers.
2016
AOL wants to create a new logo because we have a new mission to help their consumers create innovated connections with people.
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VISUALLY SIMILAR LOGOS AOL’s new logo is inspired by other logos that are related connecting, tech, and bottle.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Research
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02 LOGO SKETCHES Logo Exploration Logo Development
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Logo Sketches
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LOGO EXPLORATION Keywords: Convenience, Broad, and Association
First, we came up with three different ideas based on my brand’s soul, which were convenience (all in one), broad (be open), and association (intimate friendship). AOL brand’s soul is to provide a place to go for the best connections.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Convenience Typographic + Symbol
We designed several ideas that have typographic and graphic together. The conceptual idea was to communicate all in one. We drew arrows and a box in order to convey the idea that AOL helped our consumers get information in one place.
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Convenience Symbol
We chose convenience, which meant all in one because AOL provided everything in one place. We created lines and made them go to the same point in order to present our concept.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Symbol
AOL was based on access and making people connect, so we drew different ideas that relate to access.
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Broad Typographic + Symbol
We chose broad, which meant being open, because AOL was going to make audiences connect with people and should be open-minded.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Symbol
AOL was looking for wide animals to communicate broad, so we chose eagles because the eagle was a symbol of America. We also drew some icons that represent broad.
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Association Symbol
We chose association, which meant intimate friendship, because AOL was going to make our consumers have better relationships.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Typographic + Symbol
We wanted to use lines and made the letters connect, so the letters were lined together and related.
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LOGO DEVELOPMENT Keyword: Connections
AOL combined convenience and association ideas and narrowed it down to the idea connections. Here are more sketches about connections.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Connections Symbol
We made some graphic ideas that show connections. Most of sketches made line connect. One of ideas was a bottle with wave lines. The idea came from mailing message through a bottle. We though it was a innovative way to make connections. 28
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Connections Symbol
We explored our idea, message in a bottle, and made two bottles touch in order to indicate the idea of connections.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Typographic + Symbol
We created the letters that touched in order to convey connections. We also designed a breaking letter O to make connections.
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LOGO DEVELOPMENT Concept: message in a bottle
AOL decides on the idea, message in a bottle, for our final logo, because we want to give our customers an innovative way to connect with people. Thus, we drew lots of bottles in order to find the best one.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Message in a bottle Symbol
Since we decided message in a bottle as our concept of the logo, AOL explored different bottle shapes and a piece of paper inside the bottle.
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Message in a bottle Graphic
We also explored different perceptions of bottles and created negative space because we tried to find out which one looked like a bottle.
Visual Development Guide
Logo Sketches
Typography + Graphic
We also designed typographies and combined the bottle. The reason is that AOL wants to communicate technology through typeface.
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03 LOGO STANDARDS Final Logo Refinements Finalization of Logo Anatomy
Visual Development Guide
Logo Standards
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FINAL LOGO REFINEMENTS
Digital Refinements
MERIC
ONLINE
A normal prospective popped out from those sketches, so we chose this design and made digital version. We made a typographic instead of body, and it also represented message in a bottle instead of a piece of paper. On the button of bottle, we create wave line in order to imply sea. Visual Development Guide
Logo Standards
Finial Decision
For our final logo, our wordmark lets our consumers to understand who we are. And it combines the symbol that we have been working on to be our new logo.
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FINALIZATION OF LOGO ANATOMY
AOL’s new logo combines ocean, bottle, and typeface. AOL also creates a wordmark by creating a typeface that communicate technology. And it uses the initial name to create a bottle that indicates the idea of message in a bottle.
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Logo Standards
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AOL chooses rich orange, ocean blue, and light yellow colors because it wants to communicate enjoyable communication and modernity.
PANTONE P 300 U C=92 M=55 Y=0 K=0 #006EB6
PANTONE P 136 U C=0 M=40 Y=77 K=0 #FAA851
PANTONE P 172U C=0 M=75 Y=69 K=0 #F26652
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Student Project Website_maintainpersonalconnection.com Design tool_Adobe Creative Cloud Typography_Roboto & Industry