Logo drafts

I'm trying to design a logo for my family's small, one-gas-pump country store.  It was established in 1928, and has been in need of a major makeover for years now.  This year the whole place is getting a huge renovation and my parents are trying to kind of "re-brand" the place, which has never before had an official "logo" or anything.  Below are just ideas I've come up with, a bunch of variations.  I'd love to know which ones you think work best and which ones you think are no good!  I promise you won't hurt my feelings, and I appreciate all your honest feedback :)  Thanks everybody!!!

Logo for JMU Ed Tech

This was created by Shaun Gainer, Tassie Pippert, and Katie Horst

Colors & Typography

So, the last post made by Caitlin was in regards to logo design and you all shared some really helpful resources and ideas.  I figured that in this post, we could discuss color and typography, and how they interact with learners and content.

Colors

I don’t know about you, but oftentimes I feel stumped about what colors will work well together in a successful color scheme when I go to flesh out graphics, like logos.  I found this really great online resource that offers endless color schemes that you can browse and select.  It gives you the exact RGB values so that can be super helpful when trying to replicate those same exact colors in Photoshop, or other editing programs.  When you visit the website, you’re given the option to download a variety of color programs, but I clicked on the “download” button below the header “ColorSchemer Studio 2” (there is a Mac version at the top and a PC version further down).  Although it SAYS that the program costs $49.95, when you click “download,” it allows you to download a fully functional trial version.  I can see this tool being very helpful when choosing colors for our logos, brochures, etc.  There is even a web-safe color option if you are interested in integrating only colors that will present well in web formats (probably a good idea!)  This program also allows you to browse color schemes compiled by other users, and search for certain keywords.  I searched for “calm,” and a list of about 20 results came up, giving me 20 “calm” color schemes.  Of course, since anyone can upload their own color schemes, if you choose to use any of them, just be cautious because there is no guarantee that the creator made wise color decisions for his/her scheme.

http://www.colorschemer.com/

My favorite feature offered by Color Schemer is the PhotoSchemer.  This feature allows you to drag and drop a picture saved on your computer to the ColorSchemer, and it then offers you a color palette based on colors within it that might be useful should you consider adding text or building off that same color scheme.  The possibilities are endless!  

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Typography

In class we’ve talked some about typography and how powerful the display of words can be for learners.  Every choice we make as designers has an impact, from the font itself, to the kerning, leading, tracking, and point size of the individual letters.  We all associate certain emotions, attitudes, beliefs, or even ideas with certain fonts.  Below I’ve included a few different kinds of fonts.

On a font-related sidenote, two of my favorite online font libraries are www.dafont.com and www.1001freefonts.com.  These sites offer free font downloads for both macs and PCs.)

Food for thought  

(Of course, don’t feel like you need to respond to every single question!) :

 

What do YOU associate with some of these fonts?  In what contexts do you think they might be best suited? What about color schemes?

Similar to Caitlin’s question in the last blog posting regarding the influence that a logo has on your view of a company, does the font(s) associated with a company influence how you view them as well? 

Do you think that everyone has a different association with fonts/typography or do you think some fonts hold shared meaning and associations?

Why did you make the typographic and/or color decisions you made when designing your logo?

Logo for peer review: Catherine Rush, Caitlin Steinbach and Justin Locke

Company: Freshmen Parking LLC

This is a small local business that leases private parking spaces to freshmen and sophomore students on campuses with parking policies that prevent them from having cars on campus.

While the change is small, it has a huge impact - the current design and branding is exclusive to a huge audience of students: the sophomores. Freshmen Parking LLC currently markets to two campuses with sophomore students who cannot bring cars to campus based on their university policies. The logo as is makes it appear that only freshmen can use this service which is NOT TRUE.

The current logo is great because its basic, it tells people what the service is and how to check it out through the name itself, and the shape of the logo has been ideal for use as a banner in ads and on the website. The colors are in keeping with the idea of black for pavement and yellow for road paint, and serve to limit pricing when running color ads in student newspapers (because the only color to pay for is yellow). The current design had a lot of thought put into it, and was left largely as is in my edited version because of its existing functionality. The "& sophomore" addition is simple but great because it looks casual (which is appropriate for our young audience) and doesn't confuse people who are already familiar with the brand. Also - its important to keep the logo mostly the same because the website is "freshmenparking.com" - not "freshmen&sophomoreparking.com" and the scribble seems to imply its not really a part of the web address.

What are your thoughts on other discreet ways to improve this already successful logo?

Current logo:

Edited logo: