For this second blog post, I would like to show you my creative process when it comes to creating logos.
You can listen to an audio walkthrough paired with this post:
First, let’s talk about some of the problems I faced while designing the logo as seen above. There were two prominent problems, familiarity and Risk. I am familiar with this process, as I do it quite often, and so I consider myself proficient in it. On the over hand, I wanted to challenge myself with this process so I decided to insert the risk and pressure of a strict time limit, one hour.
To start, I will be using a creative strategy that I find particularly helpful -“Practice Deliberately,” (Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity, Keith Sawyer, P. 53-56). I will be challenging myself with a strict time limit, I will split up the work so I can focus on specific tasks, and at the end of this post I will reflect on what I learned.
The goal of this little exercise is to see what I need to improve on during my design process. Being able to refine my process through deliberate practice will help improve my output speed and quality. An image depicting the steps and iterations I made during my creative process can be seen below.
To start, I spilt up what I wanted to get done into different segments and set hard time limits on each segment. I ended up using far less time than I expected for each segment. I completed the whole logo is just under 27 minutes.
First, I needed it to figure out what the company this logo belonged to did, what it was called, and what its slogan was. Second, I needed to figure out a good color pallet for the company. Third, I needed to put together a general shape for the logo. Lastly, I needed to put the whole imagery and writing together for a finished logo.
I used exclusively Adobe Illustrator and the fonts it has pre-installed to create the logo, that way everything I am using is of my own creation, avoiding accidentally using someone else’s work. I didn’t go off any references or inspirations, I just let my intuition carry me through the process, eventually entering a kind of creative flow state.
I started a bit nervous thinking that the time constraints were a bit too aggressive, but over time I started feeling more confident as I went. The toughest part was figuring out how the font should lay and interact with each other, I had to go through many iterations before I was happy. In the end I believe that I was able to create a functional brand and logo for a theoretical video game company, perhaps I will end up using it in the future, or selling it to another company.
Now to reflect on the process and the product. I realized that the challenge I put on myself, though very helpful, may not have be difficult enough, resulting in the product having more time to develop naturally. The product itself is satisfactory, though I would probably want to spend more time on it before using it for anything professional. Overall a fun exercise, and I look forward to doing future challenges.
Thank you for reading, go out and design Enchantment!
-Maxxon Yocom