Logo development

The key points from my feedback from both peers and the client were that the logo needed to have more personality, and definitely a different typeface. I started working with Juniper - a display serif, kind of 70s in style. In some cases it worked, bottom right for example, but it didn't feel like the right tone of voice for the brand. it was too 'retro'. 

When I spoke with the client he spoke about how much he loved the typeface I used in my initial poster - Franklin Gothic Outlined. I tried to work with that too, but with the half circle it just reminded me of the Blue Note Records logo too much, although it was still an improvement, a sans-serif definitely fit the tone better.

As I was struggling I decided to start from scratch. I used Monument Extended Bold for the main type - and this gave off an appropriate 90s feel due to it's chunkiness and extended letterforms. As the client was asking for 'more personality' I decided I would find a playful script font for the sub text 'presents' to accompany 'System'. I found G2 Ciao - a funky handwritten style serif. I was really happy with the combination of typefaces and thought they paired well together. 

I asked for some feedback from Lucy who's given my insightful feedback previously, and she gave me the thumbs up. She said that what I had come up with had a very '90s rave flyer' feel to it, especially due to the hand-rendered style of the script font. With some added texture, she thought that it was there! However, I confidently shared it with the client and he wasn't too keen. He loved the typeface that I used for System and felt that it was 'spot on for the brand'. In terms of the 'presents' text though, he 'wasn't 100%'. He didn't like the type and also didn't like the way that it overlapped, so I experimented some more:

This was a short stint using the typeface Nostra, an extremely modern/ futuristic style script font. I quickly experimented with it and realised that it was completely unreadable, and as the logo will be quite small on the poster - it was unusable. 

I went back to G2 Ciao for a short while, but what was more influential was my experimentation with a different rounded shape. I swapped out the half circle for an ellipse and this immediately felt more personal. With no sharp corners, it felt rounded and friendly and right. I then decided to take this idea further into the type, and swapped out G2 Ciao for Cooper Black Italic. This seemed to work, I would go as far as saying that Cooper Black is the friendliest typeface out there - so it felt appropriate. There was also minimal overlapping - so I thought that this would please the client. 

I sent this new logo to Luke and he approved it - he was very happy! He actually gave me the idea to create an outlined version as he said 'could you make it more liney?'. I tried it but realised that this lost a lot of the impact and mocked it up on one of my previous posters to show him. He realised and agreed that the first version was more impactful - but I agreed to experiment with the outlined version further and try and make it useable.