More Effective Logos

Logos are meant to communicate a company's message to the public quickly and easily.  Logos can make or break a company. It doesn’t matter how good the company is, if the public doesn’t get it and it doesn’t hold their attention it will be forgotten about.  Color, positioning, subliminal messaging, text and more must be thought about and used effectively.

The Tostitos logo is effective for many reasons, one being its color scheme.  Classic black to fill in the bold letters is strong, while the red and yellow add playfulness.  Tostitos is a chip/salsa/cheese company and salsa is red, and cheese is yellowish hence why the red and yellow is fitting.  The cool part about this logo is the “tit” in Tostitos. The two t’s have tiny dots above them to mimic heads, making the whole t look like a person.  In between these two “people” is the i which cleverly has a red dot instead of l=black. The red dot looks like a bowl of salsa, and the two t shaped people are jointly holding a chip above the bowl.  This is fun and gives people a sense of sharing and gathering when thinking of the company. It strongly gives the message of sharing a bowl of salsa with friends and having a good time.

The subway logo clearly has two arrows one exiting the s and the other exiting the y.  These arrows are counter intuitive to the name. Everyone knows that the subway is a form of transportation and the tracks run one way to the other and the logo embodies that.  Although it is a fast food place it is still fitting because it gives off the message of coming and going. Customers can come in and out quickly. It represents a stop, like an actual subway stop, people stop here to eat.  Yellow is bright and represents optimism while green reads healthy.

The at&t logo is a globe like figure with blue and white.  There are more than one version of logo the only difference being the colors alternated.  The globe is a strong representation for this company because it represents that they are a global company and have locations everywhere.  The lines going across have balance one side thicker leading into the other which is thinner, these lines with varying thickness balance eachother out.  The lines also show connections and for a cell phone company connection is key. Overall the logo is balanced due to it being upright.

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The Best Buy logo is minimal and in your face.  The text is bulky and bold and in all caps. The text isn't crazy fancy it is simple and big.  The text is surrounded by a yellow tag. The tag goes along with the name, Best Buy. The tag represents good deals, which is what they're trying to promote.  Yellow also stands out as a logo color. The logo being so minimalistic works well with the company because their message is simple. They have the best buy, period, nothing else to it, nothing else to complicate the message, so having a clean straightforward logo further enhances this message.  

The goodwill logo is all lowercase which could be confusing to some when it comes to logos.  The top portion of the logo shows half of a white smiley face, and the g in goodwill at the bottom mimics the smiley.  Now it is easy to see that the top part is also a g and a smiley like the bottom. The goodwill is based on giving and donations, which make people feel good after giving and helping out.  The smiley is innocent looking thus coming off pure.

These logos are just a few examples of good representation.  It isn’t just about the logo being aesthetically pleasing, it also has to represent the company and their product and what they stand for.  These five logos expressed their company and services effectively through design.

PromoteCards

Promoting oneself is so important in today's society because of the vast amounts of competition.  When everyone has almost the same qualifications it is vital to try to stand out. The postcard is the perfect way to promote oneself in a professional way, but stand out due to the design aspects.  Future employers will see the postcard and be able to immediately understand who this person is, not just from the text, but from the supporting graphics and the picture. The postcard also communicates with people that one knows how to use various Adobe Creative Cloud applications, which is a leg up in the communication field.

This exercise has every aspect of design communication wrapped into one.  A professional, clean, to the point biography had to be written in order to communicate to future employers, or anyone at that, who this person is from a professional standpoint.  Writing this bio was hard because it wasn’t simply bulleted points stating accomplishments, rather it was a fun(but still professional) way to communicate oneself to the public. People are accustomed to trying to present themselves professionally, like in resumes and cover letters, but this project was different because it required visuals to back it up, a professional picture and supporting graphics.  The professional picture had to support the text, the two had to work together in this case. The supporting graphics could be tricky because they had to be relevant, something that makes sense when describing the person, not just thrown in for a requirement and still be deemed professional. In many cases graphics can hurt and not help the design, this is why it is important to pick wisely.

The postcard project was a struggle because it involved writing a clean and consist bio about ourselves, along with design elements to enhance it.  The main design element that was chosen was a Mandala, that had yellows and blues and a trim of black. The initial reason for choosing a Mandala is because they are beautiful and are all different.  The mandala was focused behind the silhouetted picture. The mandala represents balance because of its symmetry. Its design is complicated and intricate but overall is balanced and clean. This was suiting for the postcard because the bios overall message was that of balance; being fun and going with the flow but also being responsible and a hard worker.  Also, Mandalas show cultural awareness and are widely accepted, and do not give off an unprofessional vibe. The Mandla and the bio work together in communicating who this person is.

Surprisingly for once photoshop wasn’t the hardest part of the project.  Finding a professional picture was what took the most time, but once a suitable picture was found it was a breeze.  Silhouetting and using the clipping path wasn’t too hard. The picture that was used had the very top cropped out so a little editing was done to fix it by adding to the canvas size and clone stamping the top portion of hair onto the missing part.  The Mandala was also slightly edited in Photoshop by removing it from its background and deleting the black ring around it. At this point in the semester these were easy things to do. In Indesign the picture was placed on the left side of the postcard with the Mandala in the back almost directly behind the head, utilizing layers in the process.  A text wrap was placed on the bio which curved around the Mandala and picture. The text wrap was a newly learned technique so it was a little bit more complicated than the rest and took a few tries. If there wasn’t a text wrap the postcard would look too separated, picture on the left, column of text on the right. Having a text wrap intertwined the picture with the text and make it all flow together as one.  The name was made in Illustrator significantly larger than the body copy text, so that it could stand out, and a gradient of purple and pink was added then copied to Indesign. The gradient color in the name is supposed to compliment the colors in the Mandala. Making the name larger and adding a gradient make it more important and stand out. Lastly a very faint yellow was put on the background of the entire post card, this was to pull hints of the yellow in the Mandala out and because the background being white was too… white.  

The postcard came out adorable… but also super professional.  It is easily something that can/will potentially be given out to potential employers and a part of resumes and portfolios.  It fully embraced what design communication is all about, thoroughly using design elements to enhance a point, or in this case a person.

Final Portfolio... Finally

This is a new and improved resume, with more design aspects and revised content.  The name in the middle of the left column is different from most resumes and is eye catching while the lightly colored boxes behind the body copy add structure to the resume.

The flyer for the Buffalo State Pom Dance Team is a strong visual representation of the team and its ties to Buff State pride.  The Pantone colors used are the same as the Pantone colors in the Buffalo State Logo.  The importance of information was clearly show on the flyer from the varying text sizes.

 The brochure for the midterm was tedious and a very involved step by step process.  The method of placing in place was used often, along with dragging guides to fit the pictures into the dimensions perfectly.

This post card effectively uses Photoshop for the silhouetted picture and the mandala behind it, Illustrator for the name with the gradient and InDesign to put all elements together and add a text wrap.

 The logo for the company "Axis Now" is shown both in color and black and white.  The logo portrays that this is a communication services based company and the headphones on the two figures gives the idea that it is based around the music industry.

The business card contains the previously shown logo and personal information.  The personal information is all accurate (besides the address because the company does not yet exist) so that if/when the company is created this business card can be put to real use.

Let Graphic Design Make You NOT Break You

A lot goes into graphic design that goes unnoticed to the untrained eye, but after learning about graphic design techniques and taking the time to analyze graphics in our lives things start to jump off the page.

Emma's Impact

Immediately eyes are drawn to the center of the page because of the big S in the middle. There is plenty of white space utilized to the left of the S that gives the eyes a rest from the content located at the lower portion of the magazine spread. The font at the top of the magazine is bolder than the font at the bottom of the magazine.  Although both contain content the bolded font at the top is effective because it gives the reader an accurate background to Emma Watson in her Harry Potter days and transitions into the purpose of the magazine, her high fashion spread. This information is critical to understanding the whole piece thus the bold does justice. Continuing with the transition of Emma Watson in her career the title “Siren Call” has a bubbly, cursive like font which mimics the softer prettier side she is now embracing versus her nerd like reputation from harry potter.  Taking a look at the information on the left and the picture on the right everything works well together because the picture of Emma Watson is leaning in towards the left versus the S in the title which is leaning in towards the right. It creates a triangle like structure and draws your eyes to the center of the page.

How to Be Remembered

The size and the boldness of Christina Jones is effective because it is the first thing that pops out and it is important for the name to be memorable.  The extended line of the i going down the page is creative and also works well because it separates the page into two columns uniquely. Although the contact information is located at the top it is almost overlooked because the name is so big.  There is clearly more information on the right half of the page then the left which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but the resume does look somewhat cluttered on the right versus the left. In addition to less information on the left there is more whitespace which gives the eye a rest that is well needed.  The subheads stand out amongst the content within because they are a bit larger. The text of the left column is aligned right which surprisingly works well because there is only a small amount of information it isn’t hard to read. There are bolded sections under the sub heads within the content such as company names and university names.  Keeping the content all one size and boldness would look like an information overload. Having the names of the companies bolded separates the information within the whole bunch of information making it easier to read and prioritize into smaller groups. There isn’t a need to have the contact information a different text than the content it would look less chaotic if it was the same font used.  After changing the contact information to the same size and font as the content it is just the right amount of font boldness and point size.

Not everything is going to be 100% aesthetically pleasing to the eye, nor will we all agree on which graphics work the best.  There are however critical dos and don'ts that can ultimately make or break the message/information displayed.

Consciously Natural

Humans are conscious beings, yet they communicate unconsciously all day long.  Whether something is said by word of mouth, read through text, illustrated in a picture or not said at all, there is something being communicated.  It comes so natural that most people don’t think twice about how in which they communicate. Many people are naive to the fact that effective communication sometimes has to be a conscious effort.  In particular people forget that visual communication is a deeply thought about art form. When people look at pictures, flyers, websites etc. they don't actively think about what’s being communicated and how it’s being done.  It either works or it doesn’t, that's the simple beauty of visual communication. Visual communication isn’t contingent on one aspect, rather a combination of techniques. Color is typically the first comes to mind because it is the first thing we see, and if colors are chosen wisely they have the ability to pop out on the page.  White space is unnoticed, because it’s a white absence but it is something our eyes pick up on instantly. Whether things are geometrically shaped or not is something that can make or break how pleasing it is.

The Pandora logo is also iconic due to its simplicity.  The choice to keep the logo black and white was smart because in this case simple is better.  The logo has a tiny crown over the o which is a tiny but effective. The crown is supposed to convey the message that Pandora is universal, but it also reminds people of being a princess or a queen and that speaks directly to jewelry and their projected market.

The Buffalo Bills logo is a solid blue buffalo charging through the air with a red stripe going through it.  Red and blue were chosen because those are the team colors but no other colors were added because it would take away the emphasis and make it look more cluttered if so.  Boldly floating underneath the logo is “Bills” written clean and crisp. Alongside the Bills logo is the newer version of the Buffalo logo. This logo is also a picture of a buffalo, slightly different in shape, and all red. This logo captures simplicity only utilizing one color, but the outline of the buffalo is more detailed creating more complexity in its form.  Both of these logos are simple but effective not only for their simplicity but for the untouched white space. Continuing along with the bills theme an iconic pattern is the red white and blue Zubza pants. Zubaz pants can be found for any team and their coinciding colors. The pants appear to have zig zagged striped lines in alternating colors. This is more of a messy approach but it works because it conveys a sense of madness, and football fans are usually a bit wild.  The cluttered arrangement is catching to the eye because of how out of the box it is making it perfect for a tailgate and sporting event.