Dogs and cats pencilled in for Friday

The wonderful Caroline Wymer is proffering her animals for a photo session on Friday. This should help give a wider scope to the design of the event booklet and associated material.

Sign of the times

Geoff suggested the event logo appear 'in lights' at the show, and since I've been hoping that would be an option since I came up with the design, I've sent the following to a signmaker to start researching how this would be made possible.

I'm working on the graphic design for a major media event to be held for Battersea Dogs' Home this summer, for which we're going to need a one-off sign. I'm writing to you with a speculative enquiry with a view to finding the best solution to this problem.

I've attached a jpeg of the event logo as it stands, although it may be subject to minor alterations. The client wants the logo to be suspended from the ceiling and studded with small light bulbs, with a probable width of approximately 1.5m.

Obviously since this event is for a charity fundraiser, we are restricted with regard to funding so while we would desire a strong outcome we would like to find the most cost-effective solution. I realise at the moment this is quite a sketchy outline of the project but I would very much like your advice as to the best way to approach it and whether you would be willing to work with us.

Please feel free to contact me via email or on 07989157465.

Regards

Fran Payne

Photographic potential?

Sitting down to tackle the book layout, I think I need photographic/illustrative material to enrich the visual interest of what is essentially just a programme of events. A friend and former Chelsea student has agreed to let me take some experimental shots of her beautiful black labrador and black cat. These wouldn't be cute greetings card photos, more experiments in using the textural qualities of the animals to create aesthetically interesting background/feature images.

The visual qualities of glossy black fur are strong so I think it's worth exploring this as a potential area for development within the design.


The experiments will focus on the way light catches the detail of an animal's silhouette by picking up their outline in fur. I'm going to photograph the dark-furred animals against a dark background with just one directional light source picking up their texture.

Photos from the Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is the favoured venue for the Collars & Cuffs Ball, for which we will be defining a date this sometime this week.

Second meeting with Rock Events

I met with Rock Events' director today to go over the next steps of the project. We also took a tour around the Royal Opera House which will hopefully soon be secured as the Collars & Cuffs venue.

Although still waiting for confirmation of the design scheme I'm now going to start laying down a very basic layout for the book/brochure that will be distributed on the night. The overall look will obviously be dictated by the chosen identity but the basics of layout and grid can be tackled in advance.

Influences to explore as discussed with/suggested by Ben:
- architectural elements from the ROH
- royal crest
- zooming in on the calligraphic logo to abstract it
- complementary illustration

Probable venue and next meeting update

Spoke to Ben this morning. We're hoping to meet with Battersea tomorrow, otherwise the two of us will rendez-vous at the Royal Opera House, which is the venue currently lined up by Rock Events to host the event.

Another update...

Spoke to Ben today who confirmed that he'd received and appreciated everything I've sent him, he's just waiting to hear from Battersea when the final/headline act is confirmed. This act will sort of define the theme and look of the show so once that's for certain, they'll fix a date and the design they choose will be put into practice.

Bit of a waiting game at the moment. We'll get moving this week, I'm assured...until then I'm going to think about how I'd work each one of the logos across wider design applications.

The third and final concept

So I decided to revisit one of the less developed logos from the beginning of the project. Everything up until now has been fairly traditional in its use of type, whereas the earlier deco-inspired version was a break from the norm.

I played with this logo for a while and came up with a final idea that I think works quite well. Initially I was going to use this formation,


...but I decided to add the year and resize the 'AND' to create something more varied. I jumped ahead a little and thought about how this one might be presented in print, and thought that an iridescent 'rainbow' foil block might be worth considering, like the business cards for Universal Everything.


I then put together three pages explaining the idea, to a slightly less developed level than the previous ideas, but I've had less time to work on this one.

Working on Deco type

Originally the type from the logo was traced from this first typeface, Maple Origins. This is a mutation of Avant Garde BK, seen beneath it in this example.


I altered the A, U, S and C of the Avant Garde typeface in the Cuffs & Collars context.


I then played with linking the first C to the O in different ways. I also experimented by moving the second C to join the U of 'Cuffs'. I think this works better than in the first draft of this logo.


I outlined the type and started to play with arrangements. When I've settled on a couple I like best, I'll work with merging more letters in the way I originally set out the draft logo.

Hold that thought...

Still no confirmation about the meeting (I'm hoping I'll hear something on Monday) but in the meantime, I'm supposed to be coming up with a third treatment to pitch. Due to unavoidable personal circumstances, my plans to work through today and yesterday on this third concept were shot. I've therefore got much less time than I originally set aside for this.

I looked back on the work so far and the one concept that never really got my full attention was the idea I subtitled 'Deco'.


I think that within this concept there is potential for further development. I've been trying to design things that can be interpreted well in three dimensional applications as well as purely print and this certainly fits that criteria.

Saturday action plan:

- Further develop type for this concept
- Experiment with colour schemes other than the original pink/black*
- Consider an illustrative aspect
- Consider potential 3D outcomes, for this and the calligraphic approach

* I think originally the client considered this design to be part of the typographic identity I pitched first, since the colour scheme was the same

Meeting date...

...scheduled for Monday 20th at Battersea. Looking forward to it!

Response to the calligraphic approach

E-mail response this afternoon to the latest treatment I sent.

Hi Francesca,

Quick note from Ben to say, this also looks absolutely fantastic, and in fact we're even thinking this maybe more suitable. Ben has suggested what it would look like if we were to place a tiara on top? It might also be nice to see what a 'cartoon' puppy and kitten on either side using a similar kind of design style would look like.

Think the home will have real difficulty deciding which treatment to go with (which is a good thing). Ben suggests with the third treatment, to come up with something totally different - something which puts your own stylistic imprint on the designs

We haven't had final confirmation yet, but it looks like the main meeting will be Monday afternoon. Will let you know as soon we hear. All looks great though!

*****

I am very reluctant to start using overt animal imagery...I think for a logo/event identity too much integrated imagery is possibly a bad idea. However, I did experiment with putting the tiara from the first set of designs into this new one. Here are the results:

Top hats & tails

As well as 'Collars & Cuffs' I've been toying with the idea of using alongside the event logo traditional hackneyed phrases and proverbs that could somehow link animal references with this type of grand event...

Examples
A right dog's dinner
The cat's whiskers
Top hat & tails
Dressed up to the canines (dubious, but I like it!)
Mad dogs & Englishmen
A cat may look at a king

I can see this working well if the client goes for the calligraphic styling.

Below are first drafts of such examples placed roughly in the typeface I'm using as a base reference, before I attack them with a Uniball marker tomorrow...

Previews for the client

I sent the following two pages to Rock Events ahead of the meeting to show them the direction I was taking with this treatment.

A new approach

I had a go at creating a more decorative logo, using the pointers Ben gave me in the last discussion... He wanted something a 'bit more bling - but the right side of bling'. This was at first slightly out of my comfort zone but I interpreted it with this design, something less clinical and more ornate. It marries a script typeface with hand-drawn lettering and detailing, compiled in Illustrator.


He also asked me for this alternative treatment - which will be pitched to Battersea alongside the pink/black fashion-led designs featured previously - to consider more traditional metallic gold and silver finishes, so I've crudely simulated these against black and white backgrounds below.

Next meeting

The word from Ben is the meeting will probably be on Thursday next week. He's going to call me the day before to iron out a few things but it's good to have an actual date to work to. Particularly since I'm finding this stage quite difficult!

More examples of the 'ornate' theme

Logo work by Burn Everything. Yet again, ornate done well can look beautiful and quite contemporary. I need to get my head around this...am working on it, but it's not coming as easily as I'd naively expected.

From ornate to monumental; loving the logo for Love Magazine. Maybe another area to explore?

The grainy approach

While I'm approaching the OTT decorative type concept with great caution, I've got the option of coming up with a few more of my own ideas. I'm getting a bit restless just producing clean vector-based images so I might try a slightly less polished approach.

I love the stark typographic approach of Dutch studio Almost Modern; this fold-out invitation design uses a strong blue reverse to a large grayscale lo-res candid image of a cat. Clearly this isn't the way for the identity itself but the use of a grainy photograph prompted me to consider using as a design theme this more relaxed photographic approach. Marrying a sharp clean logotype with a grainy snapshot of the animal, like a home-movie still, emphasising the fun informality of the close bond owners have with their pets.

Ornate: the right side of bling

The word 'bling' was mentioned in my most recent discussion with the client regarding themes, and this foxed me briefly - I like clean typographic design and this is a bit out of my comfort zone.

However I think a clever balance can be struck between the ornate and the clean-cut. Alison Carmichael has successfully sewn up the hand-lettered design market by Mac-ing up her sumptuous hand-rendered type and creating beautiful designs like these:

Another week to play with

After a quiet week I spoke again to Ben at Rock Events, who received the previous design suggestions well. The next step is to work with a changed colour scheme focusing less on the bold fashion-led approach and offering a gentler treatment.

New directions he wants me to explore:
- lighter colours
- more of a decorative aesthetic
- going completely over the top
- something 'off the wall' completely of my own choosing.

A lot to think about this week then. Research/musings to follow shortly.