Most of the professional design work is for professional music clients, and a good portion of that work falls into the category of brand-identity design. After graduating from NYC’s Flatiron school for UX/UI Design, I decided it was a good time to revisit my brand-identity design since the school requirements had been somewhat rushed and not ideal for a more contextual deep dive.
Before even opening Adobe Illustrator or also sketching on the iPad, I knew that for the wordmark, I wanted to focus on the play of starting with words and lettering as a means to communicate through visual design creation. Conceptually, I wanted to visually express a thoughtfulness in lettering forms and similar typographic considerations. After all, parts of my most basic design skillsets relied on both sketching and writing.
- write
- words
- letter
- line
- draw
- sketch
- typed
- cursive
- script
- iambic
- flowing
- design
- structural
- modular
Wordmark/Logotype Design Process Overview
Exploration Word & Letter Shapes
I like to start by looking at the overall shape of the words and individual letters to identify potential patterns of interest.
Structural Exploration Typographic Skeleton
Then I like to see how different fonts react and create different structures for the identified potential patterns.
Customization Lettering
Playing with the idea of writing and a signature, I tried alternate glyphs and weights to forms that met my brand needs.
Refinement Variations
Now that I had an identifiable name, I experimented with variation to find a complimentary subhead font.
Final Wordmark Logotype
The final design carries the brand idea through form through with the color direction.
Overall, the first brand principles carry through in a fluid, well-balanced design. This modular design grows to incorporate more transdisciplinary and transmedia elements when needed, while still representing an identifiable signature.