While ultimately not the most creative of concepts I've ever worked on, this project was handled (from my point of view) correctly. I met with my potential client to discuss what she wanted her logo to accomplish. She had started a hunting apparel company without a logo initially, but she was making a sponsorship investment and updating her line site and felt like it was time to establish her brand. We talked about her target audience/customers, where the logo would be used, what colors she would like to see and other brands that she was attracted to. She provided me with a photograph of a deer/buck that her husband was fond of and wanted to see if it was possible to incorporate it's likeness into the design. As always, I provided her with some thumbnail sketches of possible marks to consider.

I weeded out the concepts that I felt like missed the mark before sending my client the thumbnail sketches. Since I knew we were working from a particular photograph I felt comfortable showing the initial mark designs on paper.

I numbered each particular sketch so that we could identify them during our discussion. Because they were all variations of the same design the numbering helped make sense of all the antlers.

Another thing that we decided early on was that the font didn't need to be overly decorative. This was a good call since we knew the deer rack would be busy enough. I set up 5 proof sheets based on the thumbnail design my client chose.

Out of the 5 variations provided, my client ultimately decided on the first in the set. I made some adjustments to the design of the mark (deer head) itself, so as to be more anatomically correct & softer. In our initial meeting I told her that once we settled on a mark I would come up with several treatments that would work in a variety of spaces.

In most of the treatments that I provided I married the mark to the typography. The client really liked this treatment. It allowed the letters to remain clean & readable, even at reduced sizes, yet allowed me to play with the typography just a bit to break it away from the ordinary.

Another goal I had was to establish a base set of brand colors. While the logo may appear on a variety of items at any given time, the client wanted to make sure that she had a base set to fall back on for her marketing materials.

As I said before, a deer's head isn't the most creative of marks I've worked on, but by working within the parameters of the project I think Rack Addicts ended up with a nice, simple, clean & attractive mark. She wanted a logo that she could use for many years in a variety of ways and I'm very happy to say that this mark should serve her purposes well.

While I am not currently working her apparel line design, or her site, I did want to provide some samples of her new logo "in play." I provided these images to help guide her as she starts to use her new mark.