Month: January 2016

Signify.

My logo has to signify High Seas Ink. High Seas Ink is a boutique tattoo parlour which specialises in nautical themes. How do you signify that? A tattoo gun would signify the tattoo parlour. An anchor or some other ocean related object would signify a nautical theme. An idea would be to combine the two to signify both tattoo parlour and specialising in a nautical theme. But then how do you fit in the Boutique part? Is it really necessary to signify boutique through the logo? No I don’t think it is, not if that mean compromising a simple and effective logo. The boutique part will be featured on both the website and the brochure so is not really a vital thing that needs to be put in the logo.

I started designing my logo with the nautical theme. An anchor to me fit nicely when being combined with a tattoo gun. But for now I just needed to work on getting proportions right and seeing what the objects look like apart and if they will work together.

 

 

 

I realised that I cant draw the Ink holders of the tattoo gun so I decided to replace it with something else nautical themed that would fill out the logo and keep it balanced.

John Dolan photography has that dark,mysterious yet also smart and serious feel to it that I think a good brand should have. A good brand in my eyes should be memorable for being different to existing brands. John Dolan photography uses a dark colour palette, which is what I want for my Brand High Seas Ink. I like that it uses a dark grey instead of just black, this sort of gives it a lift in my opinion as black tends to signify negative things to a lot of people. The dark grey also looks nice and sends off a sophisticated vibe. I think I will use the dark grey or similar in my colour palette for High Seas Ink.

 

https://www.behance.net/gallery/NYC-Media-Lab/2908577

NYC media lab was interesting to me because it showed me examples of website design to fit in with the Brand identity.

The main colour palette for this brand package is; purple, pink,blue and green. With purple being the main colour used to create the brand identity. You can see this because only purple and white are used on the tablet screen and on the posters/business cards. The blue, pink and green are introduced in an info graphic that explains what the business does. This may be because I wouldn’t know exactly what the business does from just looking at the posters, business cards and App screen.

The brand font they use is big and bold and stands out against the purple background. The branding is simple but effective with purple and the brand font being used effectively. It creates the sense of a brand identity, The way everything is the same theme. The website looks clean and tidy. It’s simple but it is strong in its’ identity. If I saw that shade of purple I would instantly think NYC media lab.

I liked this branding package because it uses quite a bright colour palette to create a brand identity. The bright colour palette drew me in and made me want to pay attention and look at this more. This branding package was designed by an artist called Mark Brooks (http://www.markbrooksgraphikdesign.com). I looked into some more of his work.

What his site says about this identity package- “Identity design and Branding for the LT Burger restaurant in Bryant Park, Manhattan. LT Burger specialises in high quality hamburgers made by renowned chef Laurent Touroundel.” Looking at the rest of his work this identity package is quite different from some of his other work – this was probably to meet the expectations of his client.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a look into corporate identity packages not related to tattoo boutiques to try and cover a wide range of ground and look at what makes a good corporate identity package. I found that having a recognisable logo is a must as this will go on all things in the corporate identity package.

one of the corporate identity packages I looked as was Mareiner Holz. I liked this package because the channelling of organic and natural things was used throughout. This relates back to their trade which is handmade furniture. It also showed how they redesigned the old logo to make it more understated and natural as opposed to the bright block it was before.  This corporate identity package used natural colours on all platforms this keeps with the natural and organic look the business is going for. It uses a natural colour scheme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next corporate identity package I looked into was The Voyager Cafe.

I liked this corporate identity package because it was simple and understated. It used a recurring theme of red and white stripes which works really well as cafe colours. There is use of an ocean theme as well which fits in with the Cafes’ name ‘the Voyager’. This corporate identity package really stands out to me as I have chosen the High Seas Ink brief. High seas ink is a boutique tattoo parlour which specialises in nautical themes.