Amber Ocean

This is the 4th out of 5 imprint logos for TM Publishing called Amber Ocean. This logo is for children's books so when I was researching I looked up the top 10 logos for kids and they were very colorful, playful, sometimes hand-drawn and just plain fun. 

After researching those logos, I searched to see what logos were out there already with wave or ocean theme. Below are the top three that I was influenced by. 

Again, I had to be literal about the ocean, but I noticed that the waves resemble book pages in a way. Below are my sketches I came up with. A, B, and D are pretty literal waves, while C, E, and F resemble pages in a book turning.

My client liked D the best and one the first round (a miracle) he liked it. All I had to do was tweak some more to refine the smooth edges and I was finished.

Burgundy Grove

Burgundy Grove is my 3rd out of 5 logos I am working on for TM Publishing. This branch is the Literary and Contemporary genre. (Emily Dickinson to the new American Dervish novel) My client wanted a pretty literal representation of their imprint brand.

In my sketch phase I wanted to have a visual metaphor of poetry represented in the trees. I wanted the trunk to be fluid and elegant. I also played with the style of leaves including blocked shape, variety in line width and individual leaves. I presented the following sketches to my client.

The client liked the 2nd one down on the left the best, because the trees where becoming one, he also likes the leaves on the top right tree and finally the trunk on the 2nd down to the right. I went back to the sketch book and came up with the following drawing (one of many) and my client liked it.

I then brought the following drawings into the computer and cleaned them up in Illustrator.

In all of these trees I wanted to portray grace and elegance as well as exploring different leafy top options. My client liked "A" the best and I refined the symbol further and added color. From my previous comp I fixed the line width of the trees leaves to flow better. I also condensed the trunks to become more of a solid shape as well as thickening the braches so you can see it when printed small on a book spine. 

Emerald Sky Final

I gave the client the "final" from the previous post and he liked it, but it closely resembled a spermatozoon. So I did some research on sperm (funny but true) to figure out why they looked similar. Basically, you got your head and your tail and the proportions of the cell, which were similar to my previous logo. Then, I went and researched comets to see why they looked the way they did. Comets have a trail of dust, an ion tail, a head and a nucleus. When I was looking at comets, my favorite part was the dust tail, which you see illustrated above. I also added a bit-o-dust coming off the nucleus (rock) so it detracts from the spermatozoon look-a-like. Lastly, I added a circular grid to the logo to make the tail more unified in flow and shape and voila! I finished the Emerald Sky logo. (2 down 3 to go!)

Emerald sky logo

Here is the beginning exploratory phase of the Emerald Sky logo. Since this publishing company specializes in Sci Fi and Fantasy, I had fun playing with the idea of spaceships and celestial forms. I thought about sketching griffins and pegasus', however that wouldn't work with the other 4 logos, because they are literal descriptions of the name of the company. 

 The comet was the best pick for the client and I am glad she did. I feel that the comet best includes both the sky and the emerald. Here I got to play with comet tails and figure out what the rock would look like. The client picked C with the rock in A. When I was finalizing the logo, I realized that the trail was too straight, plus the positive space wasn't working for me. So I changed it to be more dynamic and more like a comet orbiting an unseen mass.

Finale of the Azure Logo

Viola! After drawing hundreds of thumbnails (mostly mountains), and some Adobe Illustrator magic, I have finished the first out of five logos for TM Publishing (actually six, including the actual company logo.) I am pretty happy with the way the logo turned out. It was difficult to create a mountain and a book shape, because there is so many cliche logos out there using those elements. I had to really research to make sure all my ideas had not been done before. In addition, I had to simplify it down and make it dynamic. I made the book asymmetrical, because reading isn't stagnant. You are going on a journey and sometimes flipping through those pages rapidly to see what happens next. I like that the client kept the element of the pop-up mountain to show that reading (especially now it's gone digital) is interactive.  The story really comes to life and you are involved with what's going on. (At least that's how I feel.) Keep a look out for my next logo within the next week or so!

Azure Valley

Following up on my previous post, the client got back to me and said they liked option B1 and B2. I wanted to play with the white shapes in the mountain, which I think adds more interest than just a silhouette. I sketched out some more ideas, based on what they said they liked and I came up with the 3 ideas shown above. I emailed my client the 3 options to choose from (as well as mix and match the following elements: book, mountain, and color.) The deadline is this Monday and I can't wait to hear back from the client to make those finishing touches. ( I am hoping to finish this tomorrow.)

My thinking for behind the logo is that reading takes us on adventures and allows us to explore new worlds. Opening that book unfolds those new discoveries to be found, especially when this company publishes travel essays, textbooks and non-fiction stories. I like that the book opens up and creates a natural valley and has the interactive element of a mountain popping out of the book.

TM Publishing logo

These past 2 weeks I have been working on a new logo for the traditional and digital publishing house TM Publishing. These are the concepts I have submitted to the art director and I am currently waiting to hear back. The company wants a simple, progressive looking logo. If you ask me, that is quite vague. However, I did my best to figure out what exactly they want by playing 20 (10) questions. From there, I was able to get a more concrete idea of what they wanted. The owner said he liked the flag designs in the movie Kagemusha. He liked the simplicity and it described what they stand for and believe in. 

Now let's talk about my logo ideas:

1 A is an abstract of a book mixed with the feel of progression (arrows). 

1 B is with out the spine of the book to make the arrow more abstract. 

2 This logo is playing with the idea of a traditional book moving forward into digital copy.

3 A This is again playing with the idea of a digital book. Digital is something you can see but not really touch (similar to an illusion.) I also like how it switches view (one with the text at the bottom and one with the text on the outside).

3 B  is a simplified version of 3 A, referring to digital as well as to print.  I used the two key stokes [ ] and added lines for the text. Although, I worry about it being too simple.

I would love to hear any comments from you!