Studio Brief 2 - Logo Starter

Studio Brief

• Kickstarter is a web service for ‘crowd sourcing’ projects, products and businesses. Members of the public can pledge money towards projects ranging from music to technology to food. Your assignment for this week is to produce a logo design for a Kickstarter project of your choice. You will also consider and plan various branding strategies for your chosen project showing how your logo will enforce this brand.
• Your logo will incorporate your knowledge of the project and it’s creators having fully researched its origin. You will also consider carefully the market and or social context to which it belongs (e.g. music genre, locale, etc.).
• Once you have developed and designed an effective logo you will demonstrate how this will appear on at least 2 deliverable elements (e.g. Poster, packaging, CD, advert, website, etc.).

Background / Considerations

• There are many variations and contradictions about what makes an effective logo and of course these will change depending on what or who the logo is for. Therefore it is important to commit to research about logo design as well as contextual aspects related to the project product itself.
• What is branding? When presenting and submitting your work you must show evidence that you have considered possible branding strategies for your chosen project.
• An effective logo must be able to work in the various branding contexts of a company or organisation therefore you must show that you have applied your logo to at least 2 deliverable elements (these could be print or digital).

Mandatory Requirements

• All research, development, experiments and decision-making should be documented in your studio practice blog with clearly labeled posts.
• Your design boards must include: summary of research, evolution of design ideas, final design, branding considerations, logo placed on deliverable elements.
• All submitted work including your blog should be clearly labeled. Mislabeled or confusing work may result in depleted marks.
• Your work must be accompanied by an evaluation of at least 500 words.

Deliverables

1. A final logo design for your chosen project including images of your logo placed in various contexts.
2. A body of research, development and experimental work including references to any reading, research and discussions undertaken for the project.
3. Evidence of contextual research (branding, logo design, communication, etc.) that informed your project outcome.

For this brief we have to start looking out for newly developed projects on the Kickstarter website. The great thing about this website is that it enables for people to connect with others and push along their developments. As graphic designers, this project gives us a more likely chance of communicating with people and getting a response for our branding/logo design. Some of these projects are not branded and are quite stripped down in aesthetics. So there is a lot of potential work to be done. The homegrown feel and attitude of the website also gives the impression that any help weather it be money being funded or designs being contributed would be appreciated by the project owners and could potentially be used. However even if these projects are branded already or have been successfully funded, we can still turn it into our brief and create our design for it.

Here below are some projects I have come across when browsing. The top three are the ones I'm most interested in overall.
CineStill Film
This photographic film company are funding a project for a batch of 120mm medium format film to be produced, which is compatible for use in tungsten light conditions.

"Making a tungsten balanced, ISO 800, still photography film to be used in the millions of Medium Format cameras worldwide!"

I think that this logo used for the company isn't very strong. I don't like it at all. It hasn't been thought out properly. Although it's branded and has it printed on its products I feel that as the project has time left and it's logo isn't designed very well that It gives me an opportunity to re-design it for this brief. I'm still undecided, although this is potentially the biggest contender at the moment for the brief.

Muhammad Ali - The Comeback

"A Fine Art Photography book of Al Satterwhite’s photographs of Muhammad Ali preparing for his first two fights after being denied the right to box for nearly four years - featuring both his iconic and never-before-seen images."

These photos taken by Al Satterwhite are very good. They have never been seen before and after re-discovering them he has decided to create a photography book in 3 different editions to be produced.
I like the idea of creating a photobook with these really good images in, however I don't think it necessarily needs a logo or identity to be made for it. In my opinion as it's a photographic publication, logo's or icons would not really look very great on a front cover. Although seeing as photography is something I'm interested, I'm sure I could make a relevant and effective logo for this project.

Meow The Jewels
I love music, especially hip hop. So I was attracted to this project because It's based around these two hip-hop artists who have made a collaborative music project and people have set up a kickstarter to remix their album from entirely cat sounds. Weird right?

"We are raising $40k so our two favourite artists, Killer Mike and El-P, will remix “Run The Jewels 2” with all cat sounds for the music."

"UPDATE 10/9: After Just Blaze’s commitment to MTJ, a slew of other popular producers have also committed to help produce our project.  The list of producers now includes, El-P, Just Blaze, The Alchemist. Geoff Barrow, Skywlkr, Zola Jesus, Nick Rook, Baauer, Prince Paul, Dan The Automator, Boots, and Tier Contributor Solidified Sun.  Stay Tuned!!!!"

Just Blaze among other producers are also taking part in this kickstarter to offer their remixing skills.
The rewards for donating money are really cool too. For example if you donate $75 you will recevie... a “Meow The Jewels” lighter, a MTJ book of matches, a bag of “MTJ” catnip, an awesome MTJ Surprise, 6 “Meow The Jewels” stickers, a digital copy of “Meow The Jewels”, a hearty thumbs up, a “meow” tweet from @MeowTheJewels. Also if you donate $2000 you will get to produce one track on the upcoming Meow The Jewels Project and your cat can/will be featured on a track making noises/sounds. Sounds will be used however you/El-P see fit. Maybe even get your cats name in the liner notes. and a “Meow The Jewels” Shirt aswell as the rest I mentioned before.

These project doesn't really have much room for a straight up logo design. I could interpret this project and re-create the album artwork and have that onto the t-shirt design as well. But i really don't think it links to strongly within this brief. I still think this is a great kickstarter though and is why I've taken more interest into it than others I came across. I think it's unique and exciting, as you can see live progress on how a music release is going and who is getting involved.

Here are other projects of which I thought were good.
Some of these are either already branded slightly, not making it that worth while spending my own time creating an identity/logo for them. I would much rather commit time to a project which allows me a better chance of contacting the owner/developer and getting my work used. Some projects may already be funded and have no time left. If a project has a no logo or a badly designed on, with a couple weeks left before finishing then I will most likely choose that.

Resolute Bay - Cyclist Denim Jeans
Denim jeans made for safe cycling when going to school or work, which are also well crafted and styled so they are also a pair of jeans that look good too. This project already has a branding which works well enough, even though it's not too amazing. Its been thought out already but I think the concept and product is quite clever and will help out those who commute to college/work by bike.

Quick Caps - Quick release wheel lock
Yet another kickstarted project that has been branded and had it's packaging developed. Quick caps is however a clever little gizmo that makes use of locking your quick release wheel of your bike so no one can steal it. It's also helpful in that you don't need to have a second lock to go through your front wheel, as you know when locking your bike that the front wheel can be stolen if not locked properly.

Bureo Recycled Fishnet Skateboards
This project has already been funded and has a logo which works alongside it. However I still think its worth a mention. These skateboards are made out of recycled fish nets that are taken from the ocean to make the oceans cleaner. There is up to 30ft worth of netting in one of these skateboards. I searched for skateboards in the search bar on kickstarted and came across this, as I'm interested in skateboarding. If this project had time left and hadn't been branded I would be more likely to attempt a design for it.