Logo Design - Butter Beer

Although I am happy with the outcome of the Bubba Gump Shrimp logo, I thought I would attempt to design a Butter Beer logo as an extra alternative. I started out by looking at existing beer logos, and although there are a couple of more complicated designs, the majority were relatively simple and clear in there design. Fortunately there weren't many existing designs for Butter Beer, this is surprising as the franchise is relatively big.

Above is  my initial drawing of what the design would look like, of course i have made some alteration to the design on the left. But a lot of the ideas remain the same. 

This, above, is the finished design from my initial drawing. It is main shape comes from two circles at either end of a rectangle, the circle at the top has no fill and the stroke cuts into the shape of the rectangle, whereas the circle at the bottom does have a fill and is united with the rectangle. After creating the basis of the logo I needed to add the text. 

I've used an understate serif font the has just slight protruding ends, as this appears more tradition. 

Added a text box under 'Butter Beer' as this helps the text stand out more. 

At the top of the logo around the circle is an effect similar to the vintage Japanese sunset. For each of the 'rays' - which in this case are grey - I used the pen tool to draw the four sided shape. I then used the direct select tool to adjust the shape so that it would fit within the logo. 

There is also the use of floral banners, these were a free vector pack collection seen below. I did try ti make my own within Illustrator, however it proved to be too difficult. The vector banners added a little bit of extra style to the logo. 

Below is the finished logo on a bottle. Although really happy with how the logo turned out and excited to stick it onto a bottle this became a slight issue. It was mentioned that the design was more of a label than a logo. And sticking it onto the bottle was a bit part of why it looked that way. Yet, not to be phased, I embraced the idea and decided to cut down the label design.  

Seen both above and below are two very similar designs that only differ in the text used. Above have he same text used in the original logo - that is now the label. Below uses a similar font but the letters are slightly more rounded. Both have a clear connection to the original idea, with the use of the cream banner box being lifted out and placed in a circle. Not only is there a link with the banner and text looking the same, I have used the same colours as well. 

I felt that the two designs about, although worked really well, were very simple to construct. I understand that a good design doesn't have to be complex. However, I felt that I should try a least one more alternative to give myself more choice. Below is that last alternative. 

In this design, below, I reconstructed the original base of the logo - two circles and a rectangle. I then copied across the grey 'sun beams', as this was a feature I really liked. Next I used the direct select tool, selected multiple points at the bottom of the design, and rescaled the shape. After this I inserted the text to the centre of the the top circle. I decided to go for the initials rather than squashing the whole name into the space. 

In this example I used the same font for the text as I feel it suits the logo, as it as the protruding ends like in the original logo - that is now the label. If the logo was to be scaled down, people would still be able to make out the logo and text. As an extra alternative I decided in the example below to remove the bottom circle.

I needed to change the appearance of the text, as in the the two examples above the 'BB' does not quite sit right.  I tried a couple of different ways to present the text. Of these the one I like the most is the middle design, where the 'BB' overlap. One final adjustment I made to the design was increasing the width of the circle. The finished design can be seen below. 

Logo Design - Bubba Gump Shrimp

Progressing from the initial logo designs, Mr. Fusion and Prestige Worldwide, I decided to try and create a logo for Bubba Gump Shrimp. Although there is an actual business as a result of the film, I stuck with the idea as I was using the film as inspiration not the existing restaurant.

In this first design I have united to circles, and have the text following the curve of the pathway. In the centre is an image of a shrimp that I acquired from the internet. I pulled it into Illustrator and imaged traced it with the black and white logo trace. This gave me a basic shrimp image that is the basis of the logo.

In this version of the logo I have kept the same font, as I feel this works nicely with the design. However I have removed the inner stroke, and pushed the text further towards the outer stroke. I felt the created a cleaner logo, with less filling up the space inside the circle. 

Here I have changed the font of the text at the top to try a font more typical of a printing press. I only changed the font at the top as this was a quick test. I do like the font type now at the top of the logo, however I may still continue experimenting with fonts, incase there is a better suited font. Perhaps the biggest, or most noticeable change is that of the background colour. Before I used pink as it relates well to the shrimp. Yet I feel the blue fits slightly better in this design, and can be linked to the sea keeping a link with the shrimp and ocean theme. 

From these first attempts I realised that the design was little bit too basic. To give the logo more substance I wanted to create a vintage print style, adding the effect of it looking old and rustic. This proved to be the most difficult effect to incorporate working in Illustrator, I had to watch several tutorials and read a couple of articles on it before finding the best way for me to do it. Above is my first attempt, the white marks is a result from removing a layer from the background in pathfinder. The processes is shown in the below image. This was an interesting result but not the effect I was originally thinking of. 

The font has changed again, here I tried to reference back to the print typical of the military. Linking subtly to the origins of the logo from Forrest Gump, as the pair met and came up with the company while in the army. Another change to the text would be that 'Company' has changed to 'CO.', this is a little bit more informal but felt a company based around shrimp could be.

I gave designing the logo with the vintage effect another go to try and accomplish the effect I originally set out to when I re-imaged the design.  In this design I managed to create the effect of the black text fading, or the print not perfect. I returned the text to the original font 'American Typewritter', as I felt this was the best suited to the logo. I really like this end design and feel it is a good remake of company that many will quickly think back to the film it is from. 

Logo Design - The Brief

For the logo design in this assessment we had to design a logo for a fiction company that originates from film or TV. The instructions can be seen below.

I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do for the logo, but decided to start by researching into other designs and film companies that I could use for inspiration. Through this research I came up with four main companies I could use, these were; Mr Fusion - from Back to the Future, Prestige Worldwide - from Step Brothers, Bubba Gump Shrimp - from Forrest Gump and Butter Beer - from Harry Potter. The initial planning of the logos can be seen below. 

With the logo of Prestige Worldwide the main focus was on incorporating the world into the logo. The two concepts I came up with was centering the world with text following a path on the outside, or using a smaller world figure and having the name of the logo follow after it. The second is my preferred choice as I think the outcome will be more professional looking.







For the Mr. Fusion logo I started by looking up what fusion meant, one meaning is when two light atoms bond together. From this definition I planned that the logo should show two or more atoms. I came up with a couple of possibilities for the design. The first shows the atoms free from the main body, the second shows the two atoms on the ring orbiting, the last shows four atoms joined together. Although not fulling representing the meaning of fusion, the designs do carry a strong theme of atoms and chemistry.

Bubba Gump Shrimp was an interesting logo to design as it was the most apparent to me that could range in appearance. The design with shrimp on a plate, with a knife and folk, seems a bit novel and I'm not too keen on it. The design with small shrimp at either end of the name is a possible good design. However, my favourite is the last design, of the shrimp in the middle and the text circling round it. I also like this design as it turns the restaurant into a company.






Lastly the design for the butter beer. I looked at existing beer logos for inspiration and saw that a lot took a simple approach to their logos. With hints of flora, or decorative flourishes to set apart a couple of the higher classed brands. I tried to incorporate this into the design on the left. The right design will include an actual beer image in the center.

From these my I started by designing a logo for Mr Fusion, this was the name of the fuel converter for the Delorean in the Back to the Future series. From the name fusion is creates an image relating to chemistry and of atoms. I wanted to incorporate this in my design. 

I used a serif font as a thought it was more appropriate for the scientific company to have. The four smaller circles are meant to represent atoms orbiting, relating to the scientific field of the company. I also changing the shape and orientation of the largest circle to give a notion of movement of the atoms.  The colours are basic, but I feel that they work well in the keeping of the design. I did originally try to incorporate; yellow, orange, red and purple into the design. But having this range of colours made the design to busy and confusing. 

Another design I created at the beginning of the logo process was for Prestige Worldwide, this is the company that created in Step Brothers. Although its not very clear what the company actually does, the name lends itself nicely to logo design. I focused on the 'worldwide' part of the name. By incorporating the initials P.W. into the globe, this would be used as a logo if the original logo was to large. Getting the colour and shape of the initials right was a bit of a challenge, as I had to make sure if the logo was scaled down that they would still be readable. 

I used a san serif font as the company is more modern and creative. Another feature I included was this tag line 'The First Word in Entertainment'. This is in the film and fitted well with the promotion of the company. 

CD Cover - Will Heller

After my first design of a CD cover I decided to look at some of the top album artwork over the years. A lot of the entries in lists were iconic albums of artists such as; The WHO, The Beetles and The Rolling Stones. I couldn't really see anything particularly special about the design of the cover, and think a lot of the decisions where mad on the impact of the actual artist not the cd cover. A features that were common among these CD covers was the use of band members or artists. In the cases were the artist does not appear on the CD cover, some did used complex designs to wow the audience. However a lot went for a simple and obscure approach, below are a couple examples of this. (Muse - Origin of systems, Pink Floyd - Dark side of the moon, The Van Buren Regulars - 14 seconds till' 3 and Bring me the Horizon - Count your Blessings) 

As you can see from the few CD covers above above, the design does not need to be very complex to make an interesting cover. Pink Floyd's cover for Dark Side of the Moon was hugely successful and is now used for all sorts of merchandise. This is helpful for me as I am going to me restricted with the imagery I can use, as this we be generated randomly from the link in the instructions for making the CD cover (refer to previous post). 

Below are the screenshot from the randomly generated pages. The Wiki page is for American football player Will Heller, the last five words of the quote are 'the hurt. Let it go.' and the flicker image is of a tick.

There was no immediate idea towards a design as these three sources came up. I was happy to be given an actual name for the wiki page, that should make the design make a bit more sense. The quote was a bit odd, I was not sure whether to keep the full-stop in it. Lastly the image, a tick, it may be difficult to make an image of a tick look good. I opened the image in photoshop and scaled it to the size of the CD cover - 800px by 800px. I tried to put my research of CD covers to good use and went for a simple and slightly obscure design by changing the hue and colour balance of the image.









I quite like the effect this had on the image, it made a fairly boring image into a bold and exciting image. It may be too much for some but I think that for format of CD covers allows this bolder expression of design.

For the text I searched online for free font downloads and came across one called Track. I thought the font looked different so decided to try it. The way the font links its 'R's' and 'K's' is unique and I like the way it creates a postmodernist feel to the CD cover. The image below shows how I used grid lines to aline the name of the artist and the title of the band.

On my second attempt at designing the CD cover I used another skill developed at university, photography. I booked the photo studio to take a couple of images of myself as the module. I then opened an image in photoshop and then layered the tick to appear like it was on my skin. I found that this look best when I de-saturated the image of myself so it was black and white. And also altered the colour of the tick to a green, via the hue setting.  Once scaled and moved into a position I was happy with I added the text to the CD cover, keeping the font to 'track'.  The result of this can bee seen below. In a odd way the tick sort of relates quite well to the album, as there it hurt can be seen as a parasite, like the tick.

Unfortunately this design is too simple in its appearance. The concept is there of a person getting rid of the parasite tick, relating to the album name of getting rid of the hurt. Yet the design is very 2D in its appearance. Due to this I will be using the first design as my final CD cover, shown below.

Grids and Rulers

In this example I was practising using the grid lines and ruler markings that can help in alining designs. It was taught that having a structure to a design can help in its overal effectiveness on the audience. Here I have used a a couple of very simple ruler lines as reference points to where the text should be. 

Overall I feel that this is not my best work but was a key learning curve in terms of how I was presenting my designs. Looking back at my first attempt of the CD Cover, it it obvious there is no use of the grid lines. However, I will be using grid lines more often in the future, I feel that this will be useful in all of the designs on this topic. 

CD Cover Design - The Brief

To create our CD covers we were given a process that would give us completely random information to combined into one design. Three websites were used in the design of the CD cover, below is the instructions we were given to create the CD cover. 

First, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random, to get a random wiki article. The title of this would be the name of the band/artist. 

Then, http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3, would take us to a randomised quotation page. The last four or five words of the very last entry on the page would be the title of the album. 

Last but not least, http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days, to see randomised images uploaded to flickr over the last seven days. The third image on the page would be the cover art or part of the design. 

In the workshop the wikipedia article I got was titled, Trojanus of Saintes. The last five words of the quote were, 'something to give in return'. And the third image on flickr was a bed of flowers. After sourcing the randomised information, next I had to decide what type of music genre they would best fit. From the title, Trojanus of Saintes and the flowers, I decided to pursue a classical music design. 

Firstly I decided that having a whole garden of flowers on the cover of the album would be too much, I used the lasso tool to cut out the most predominant flower. As this flower has white petals, I had to change the colour of the background. I thought that black was the best colour to go for as it emphasised the significants of the flower, something that could have been lost with a more colourful background. Next was the task of adding the text, I knew as I had chosen classical music as my genre that the font would have to be serif. I used the colour drop to take a shade of white from the petals of the flower for the titles colour, and did the same from the centre of the flower for the album name.

Of course I tried various designs and layouts before choosing the one see below. I am happy with the out come of the design, it is simple and clear. If I had to make just one adjustment, it would be to try and remove the shadow on the flower.

Introduction to New Media; Design.

Over the course of the next ten to eleven weeks I will be building a portfolio of work to demonstrate my skills with using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. I will be creating a CD cover, logo and a film poster, and will have set criteria for each of the designs. The assignment will not only showcase my skill with using the software, it will also enable me to demonstrate my ability to plan, and think about the structure of design. Using the rule of thirds, grid lines and rulers may assist in this.

 I have previous experience in using Photoshop to process photographs taken last year, in my Photography and video module in my first year at University. So I am familiar with the basic tools, though the more advanced will be something new for mw to learn. As far as Illustrator is considered I have never used it or any software similar to it, therefore it will be a completely new skill for me to learn. I am looking forward to developing my skills on both of these softwares.