The Carnegie Mellon Ballroom Dance Team (CMUBDT) needed a new logo. The existing logo was a detailed silhouette illustration of dancers which often did not work well on promotional pieces.
1. Goal Setting
My process for designing the logo began with setting goals.
– works as a symbol
– conveys fluidity, strength, and elegance of dancing (with energy)
– reflects the fundamentals of ballroom dancing: man holds "frame," lady shapes and "sells"
2. Getting Inspired
I looked at a number of existing logos relating to ballroom dance, and sketched down a handful with elements I liked. It quickly became clear that picking the right pose to base the logo off of will be important.
3. Picking a Pose
I looked for photos of professional dancers I enjoyed watching, stopped in dynamic movements. With those photos as reference, I sketched gestural sketches of their poses, and selected the strongest ones.
4. Simplification
I iterated on the gestural drawing to find the simple representation that best captured the dynamicism and strength of the pose. I wanted to follow the process of first extracting the essence, then adding elements to it to communicate more.
5. Determining a Visual Style
I looked at generic logos and wordmarks for visual inspiration. I found quickly that variation of thick and thin in a stroke, especially when strokes ended in a sharp but softly curved point, was essential in communicating elegance and movement. The serifs of serif letterforms were also incredibly effective in conveying strength without losing that sense of delicate elegance.
6. Iterating digitally
Once I had a good idea of what I wanted the logo to look like, I recreated the sketch in illustrator.
The digital iterations were very much guided by feedback from others. Some of the feedback I received included
– Too thin
– Too sharp
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7. Application
The final design will be applied to new team t-shirts, a tablecloth, a banner, and other future products.
Tablecloth
