This time out, I thought it might be interesting to show you the creative development behind the scenes, a case study of sorts, and take you under the ‘hood’ of a typical project that yielded some fairly atypical results. Rummaged through some stuff on my laptop and I found this interesting gig from last summer – a corporate identity workup for The Olde Mill Cabinet Company, a new company that was barely a month old when they came to the studio.
The client, who had a contagious passion for quality woodwork, wanted his logo to depict the modern woodworking industry while still invoking the classic approach to kitchen & bath cabinet construction from days gone by. The requested direction of the logo was towards “iconic, professional , bold, unique, high end” yet somehow meshing a “modern look” with some “historical flair”. Our designers, in consultation with the client, conceptualized a 1700’s revolutionary era feel, visualized through slightly elaborate, Rococo style ornamentation. The typography of the work needed to be clean, yet stylized enough to carry the historical theme. The saw blade was the client’s idea – he felt that is was an identifiable symbol that encompassed working with wood years ago, and remains true to this day.
As Olde Time were a fledgling company, describing exactly what the company did – ‘Cabinet Company’ – was critically important. Some clients (and designers) may be of the opinion that such detail is unnecessary, but until such times as your new logo is recognizable, and famous, enough to ‘drop’ the descriptor (think Nike) it’s generally advisable to tell your audience exactly what you do. Especially if the logo is for a retail level company. Gathering all the bits and pieces – parameters distilled from the original creative brief and some initial phone consultations – our designers created a series of preliminary logos (see above). Unlike some of our projects, the production time for Olde Mill consisted of a few preliminary designs, followed by a couple of simple revisions. A case when we ‘hit it out of the park’ on initial attempts, rather than the more typical drawn out ‘hunt and peck’ revision cycles. Though I gotta give credit where credit is due – the client helped the design process move along at a smart pace by developing some style concepts and direction before submitting their project.
Once the company logo was finalized, our staff went into stationery development – business cards, letterheads and envelope – approaching this phase with the same basic notions in mind. A complimentary color scheme was developed (the logo itself is a four color process design, the caveats of which were fully explained to the client) and while we had complete freedom, the number of colors were kept minimal in order to showcase the logo rather than overwhelm it. The judicious use of background ’saw blades’ helps accent the logo and drive home the overall concepts involved. The logo (horror of horrors) is at the bottom of the letterheads – something which isn’t too run-of-the-mill, but I think it works here (though it’s not advisable for most).
At the end of the day (and despite usual deal breakers – multi-color blends and gradients) the overall look of the package is clean and professional, while still remaining unique & memorable. It should be noted that the letterhead and business card both bleed – the color fields run right the edge of the sheet and the ramifications of this should always be taken into consideration (especially when the work’s four color to boot). In order to achieve bleeds, the letterheads have to be printed on an oversized sheet which is then cut back to standard size.
It’s a very nice effect, but can add significantly to printing costs.
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