Designing logos

How our designers work. A few case studies

Designing logos is the day-to-day activity at The Logo Factory®. The corporate logo samples you’ll find in our Showroom will attest to that. But what about ‘behind the scenes?’ How do our designers create the logos we’ve become famous for with professional consistency? To answer that, we thought you might be interested in a few random case studies of actual projects at our studio, culled from our logo design portfolio. We’ll show you the final design, tell you a little bit about the rationale behind the logo, as well take a look at the process it took to get there.

Client: ExxonMobil

Project: Anniversary Logos. Joliet Refinery. While the majority of our logo design projects are for small to medium sized companies, we also work with many Fortune 500 companies, either directly, or through advertising agencies. In the case of Exxon Mobil, we’ve developed several logos that incorporate the main corporate trademark (30th & 35th anniversary logos shown). Working on logos for Fortune 500 companies is no different that any other client – our designers work up a series of preliminary designs, present them on our Factory Floor client area, and through a series of edits, revisions and ‘tweaks’, hone in on the finalized logo design.

In the case of the Exxon Mobil anniversary designs, we had to incorporate the already established text logo, so we were restricted a little in how far we could push the envelope. Colors were decided as well, as the design had to fit with the oil giant’s already established corporate identity. You can see the various options that we created during the project above – simple logos that didn’t ‘fight’ against the original mark, yet unique enough to stand on their own. The final design is featured above right.

Client: Pick A Pizza San Francisco

Project: Logo, brochure & Yellow Pages ad design. Restaurant startup Pick a Pizza wanted to launch their marketing campaign with a bang and as such, contracted The Logo Factory to develop a new logo and ‘look and feel’ for their new pizzeria service. Pick a Pizza only accept orders via their online ordering system, and choices – while varied – are limited to a number of popular topping combos. While they had their delivery and concept down pat, Pick a Pizza had no creative direction and left that to our designers to develop. As many of our projects do, the logo design ideas for Pick a Pizza began came from a series of doodles, sketches and very rough conceptual drawings – all in an attempt to nail down the creative direction.

Our designers worked with the usual pizza artwork – characters, cartoons, stylized pizza slices and (shudder) a pizza blasting out of a computer monitor (hey – even we come up with unoriginal logo cliches once in a while). None of the preliminary designs (some shown) grabbed the client – until it was decided that the logo needed to be location focused. We created a seal-type design and added a graphic of the Golden State Bridge and surrounding skyline. Now, we were on to something. After selecting an appropriate font and typography, we began to experiment with some color combinations. Pizza ingredient icons were illustrated and added, and the colors were finessed until we achieved the logo featured above.

As the company was in full-blown startup, we also needed to develop Yellow Pages ads (which could later be used as Pick A Pizza brochure design templates) and sell sheets. As deadlines were critical – stock photography wasn’t available (and there wasn’t enough time to shoot specific material) our designers created a series of food themed icon graphics which were also appropriate for Pick a Pizza’s web site. See here for more restaurant logos.

Client: Papa’s Sports Bar & Casino

Project: Logo design & beauty shot. It’s hard to believe, but the logo for Papa’s Sports Lounge started with the designs above (as per the original client project submission) but through a serious of rigorous design phases, morphed into the ‘Pirate’ version shown below. Sometimes it’s interesting to see how the design process evolved, and how a corporate identity changes from being just a part of of company, to being the theme of the company itself.

The logo for this company wasn’t for a new venture. Far from it. Papa’s has been around for years and they wanted to ‘re-brand’ in order to take their establishment to a new level. They wanted a simple ‘shield type’ logo and one that contained the essential ingredients of the business – sports betting and casino. Fair enough. Our designers worked up a series of preliminary designs (some of which are shown top right) with the typical sports logos and icons. After we suggested that the client broaden the logo somewhat, we developed a ‘Papa’ character – little bald dude with one of those huge ‘Number 1′ foam gloves that are so popular with sports fans. After a few minor revisions, we began to add a wider range of color (the original brief called for a spot color treatment). Once color was added the client decided that we needed more elements that portrayed their lounge – a bag of cash, a drink and a card table. The logo now risked being cluttered and ‘trite’. How many more elements can you fit into a design after all?

That’s when the project came to a shuddering halt. After consultation with some small business marketing types, it had been decided that the entire theme of the lounge was going to be changed. No little bald dude. No foam gloves allowed. No sir. The theme of the lounge was going to be that of a Pirate’s Cove. Yikes. Now the logo we had developed didn’t work at all – on any level. A completely new project was started, this time zeroing in on the character himself – Papa – who had now morphed from a fairly nondescript fellah, to a very specific type of character – a Pirate. The new project brief was much descriptive – the character was not to appear menacing, nor ‘too friendly’ – typical of most cartoon logos. Other than the rapidly approaching deadline, not a big deal.

After a series of character illustrations and sketches, the client settled on the figure seen here. Once that stage of the design process was completed, all that was left was the additional of appropriate font work (inside a Pirate’s flag, natch) and a nice background to wrap it all together. As part of the project, our designers also developed a Treasure Map themed beauty shot design (above). For more on work that goes on at the studio, read our Daily Logo design inspiration blog.

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