For my logo design project I decided to utilize my public Facebook page dedicated to animal rights awareness in the Pacific Northwest. The reason I chose this and not something else is because I believe motivation for the subject helps to create a stronger design. When one is passionate about the subject, it helps artistic imagination to spark ideas.
Considering the logo is a draft, at this stage, I decided not to use colors just yet. Although original logo already has the established color scheme I considered revising the use of color to better reflect the theme. Why? Because original color scheme may be aesthetically nice to look at, it is not motivational, or visually representing of the urgency and the mood of the activist movement that I am trying to convey. Replacing the colors right away didn’t feel like it would be adequate, so I chose to wait for a few days, step away from the original colors and “forget” the original idea.
Having colors on the final version felt more appealing to me, so I concentrated on inspirational ideas first. I turned to google. I searched for some local animal protection an defense organizations and here is what I found.
Top three inspirational sites:
I chose to utilize responsive design for the creation of my logo, which would allow a wider range of use (large logo for large print and smaller versions are for medium to small size screens and digital representation) to reflect the current trends. The logo consists of three parts the text (title: Animals Rights PNW), the shield with the graphic containing a fist clenched arm with a paw print on it and a ribbon (banner) across the shield that says in Latin “For All Animals.”
Why the fist with the paw print? Since my Facebook group is an activist group/movement, I chose to make it look a bit “revolutionary” with a call to action expressed metaphorically through clinching fist. We, as humans speak on behalf of animals, defending their rights. Why did I chose to use latin? Perhaps the inquisitive minds would search for the meaning of the phrase to realize that it connects the logo together. The theme is animal rights belong to ALL animals, big and small, domestic and/or wild. Also, because I think it is clean, it is high art language and it would differentiate my logo by including a tagline within it’s main design.
Speaking of differentiation. How does my logo relate to my topic? Know Your Audience. I want to be strategic about the theme, I built my draft in shades of gray to allow myself stew a little bit longer on the choice of colors. I wanted to make the overall design of the logo visually appealing and to be able to tell a story to the audience about the topic of the activist group. So after researching a few local organizations by googling their logos and surfing their websites, I found out that the shield is a common element, so as the paw print (both are present in the design). But I also wanted to stand out and have the logo be sharp, clean, aesthetically pleasing to the eye and vibrant enough to resonate with the audience.
I utilized our exercise from the previous session to combine the shapes. I used rounding corners tool, changed the angles by moving anchor points, expanded the shapes and appearances and created clipping masks to cut out the detail of the fist.I used shape builder tool, utilized simple shapes and manipulated simple shapes to achieve the desirable result. The shield originally consisted of one shape but when I would scale the shield, the stroke would change in relative size. I expanded the shape and separated the thick stroke from the shield, and repeated that with the ribbon, after applying warping effect.
Hello Mikhail,
After reading your logo explanation, I must comment that your logo is well focused and all the details are related to your topic. Personally, I consider that a strong characteristic of your logo is the inclusion of the shield, the fist and the paw due to they represent a clear message that is the defense of the animal rights.
For your logo, I will only provide two recommendations. The first one is that the letters “PNW” should use the same typography of “Animal Rights” in order to follow the Similarity Principle and make the abbreviation be perceived as part of the group. I understand that the PNW letters have a similar sans-serif typography, but I consider that if you use the same typography, the letters will reinforce its presence in the logo structure. For the other logo variations, you could work in resizing the abbreviation but keeping the same typography.
As a second recommendation, I will encourage you to change the dark borders of the ribbon due to all the logo elements does not have borders. With this said, I consider that the ribbon should follow the same style of the other elements. You could try to use a light color border or not borders, as we learned in the Illustrator tutorials. Finally, I will love to see the final presentation of your logo with colors.
Have a nice day!
Adriana G.C.
Dear Adriana. Thank you so much for your critique. I agree with you, the continuity is the key here. However it is typical to have logos contain two or three different fonts in them. “Animal Rights” is the main font and “PNW” is the secondary font. I will play with the fonts to perhaps get them to differentiate a bit from the originals to reflect your suggestion. The main idea here is to separate the PNW from the Animal Rights, for the purpose of identifying geographic location (PNW – Pacific Northwest) as a secondary content and the title of the organization (Animal Rights) as, obviously, the main theme of the logo. Maybe I need to make the PNW smaller…
The dark borders of the ribbon will be reduced from the ribbon all together, you are correct, the continuity is important.
Thank you for your thoughtful suggestions. I appreciate it!
Hi, Mikhail.
I kind of get the feeling that you’ve done this before! All of the images you’ve posted seem very polished and well thought out. The execution of each element is great too. I especially like the single paw print within the badge. I think that the full logo is great but I’m a bit unsure about the latin text. If people don’t know what that means it might be a distraction. But I really like the banner across the front. So, I would definitely keep that and consider an english translation. I also think that some color might add to the overall feel. I like the clean, crisp look of the grays on the white background and if you didn’t add color, I don’t think it would still be great. But maybe with just a touch color could make it pop more. Like even if the paw had some color, it might pop just a bit more. But honestly, that’s my only critique. I think any of the images you posted could be very pro and polished. So, if you don’t use any color, it would still work well for me.
I hope that helps!
Steve
Thank you so much for your critique. Yes, I agree, I have been going back and forth with the Latin vs English version of the slogan “for all animals” and for the sake of communication, it should probably be English version, but I can’t help it to feel that I want it to be classy, hipster-ish and high quality. You can see a good example of the effect I am trying to achieve here is the “E PLURIUBUS UNUM” – the motto of the US, which you can found on the banner of the US Seal.
After receiving valuable feedback from my peers, I took the suggestions into consideration and made further adjustments to my logo design. I particularly had a hard time with connecting the three parts of the logo – the main title (Animal Rights) the shield graphic and the PNW (geographical indicator). After manipulating the three elements, I believe my final version will justify my peers’ reviews. In addition to the colors, I chose the colors to be bright vibrant to imprint on the viewer. I’ve made the decision to stay with latin phrase as a secret feature, to let the viewers find out what it stands for (sort of like an Easter egg hunt)
Mikhail,
I think your design is very strong. It stands out immediately and I think it is very memorable. I think the ribbon/banner makes the logo look a bit busy and the Latin phrase could be confusing to some.
I would recommend either removing the banner or switching out the Latin phrase for “Animal Rights PNW”. That could make is less busy and easier on the eye.
After reading your post I see you chose not to add colors yet to have time to think about it. It would be nice to see the logo in color and since it is already strong I don’t think you would need to add much color just a little bit to make it pop. I think either the shield or the fist/arm should have color.
Those are just a few suggestions but again I think you did an excellent job and already have a fantastic logo.
Dana
Thank you, I will be working on it tonight and tomorrow to finalize the logo. Yes I agree, color definitely will make the logo pop. Thank you for your comment!