Logo Design

To create a logo that embodies the idea of Responsible Consumption and Production, I was first tasked to trace five silhouettes from photos relating to that theme in Adobe Illustrator. The photos I chose are all objects that were mentioned by my interviewees. This is for the Define phase of Design Thinking. Normally, the Define phase is about defining the problems that your users experience. Instead, I am defining the images that they mentioned by drawing them. Below each silhouette is the word that I believe each silhouette communicates.

TOGETHER

PROGRESS

RISING

HARMONY WITH EARTH

NATURE

Afterwards was the Ideate phase, in which I designed five logo concepts. I had fun experimenting with type, and I tried to consider the tone that each font would give off. I think I'll use either a serif font to show elegance and professionalism, or a bold font to show how serious the non-profit is about protecting the planet. Please note that some of the fonts used are Windows system fonts, and may not display properly on other operating systems.

I used mainly the earth and the penrose stairs because I felt that they best represented the idea of progressing with human development in harmony with the earth. The first design, with the earth inside the C, is very strong, but I feel like it's already been done hundreds of times before, so I didn't pursue that idea. When I started combining the Earth and Penrose stairs, I, at first, wanted to have this logo be just an image, with the text underneath, but then I played with the idea of having small letters in the globe.

I realized that the small letters wouldn't be visible when the image was small, so I tried making the letters bigger, then I realized I could make them even bigger if I arranged them to fit in the negative space of the globe. I also simplified the stairs a little bit and switched around the positive and negative space after receiving feedback that I should do so.

I then started to wonder if this logo would even be appealing to the target audience, or if it at all communicated what the fictional non-profit would be like, so I went back to the bold letters with the penrose stairs in the C, and I made it red to represent anger towards those who harm the planet. I then had the idea to put a different symbol in each letter, a set of arrows, the stairs, and the earth. The C is much wider that it is tall, so I made the other letters taller than the C so they would all be the same size and it would feel balanced. I positioned the R and the P close to the C and had them wrap around it in order to make the design feel like one cohesive whole instead of three separate letters. I positioned the C slightly lower than the baseline, thinking that this would make it a focal point and make the design more interesting.

My professor suggested some changes to this design. She said to remove some of the white lines around the earth, make the C as tall as the other letters, space the letters farther apart, and position them all on the baseline. She also said to make the shape around the stairs a perfect half circle. I was unable to do this, because a half circle is not wide enough to cover the left half of the stairs, so I instead made it more of an oval shape. For the subtitle, I chose Julius Sans One. The thinness and lack of serifs contrast this font to the one used in the main logo. Details of this font, such as the curve to the R, give the font a hint of elegance. The rigid, small caps style keeps the serious tone intact.

I had two other ideas on how I could make the C more clear, and I wanted to draw them out. I also tried using Libre Baskerville for the letters.

I noticed that throughout this ideate process, I often put so much effort into my concepts that they could perhaps be considered part of the Prototype phase of Design Thinking. I also, during my classes, acted out the Test phase of Design Thinking when I showed my prototypes to the professor for feedback.

Color Scheme

I designed the logos using (mostly) black and white, now I have to pick a five-color scheme that fits the organization.

I used Paletton to make this first palette. I used the same dark red that I used in one of the prototypes as my base color, then picked triad. Paletton gave me dark muted blue and green, and multiple monochrome shades of each. I liked how blue and green were also the colors of the earth. I tried to pick shades that contrasted so they would make elements on a website distinguishable. I added white to the collection of colors so I could use it for text; and make the text readable against the dark red background. I feel that the collection of muted colors and white helps give a serious visual identity.

For the second iteration of the palette, I tried using Adobe Color. I used the Analogous setting and dragged the handles back until I got a color scheme that was similar to my first one. The tool gave brightly saturated red, blue, teal, green, and orange. I removed orange because I thought it would be out of place, and I lowered the brightness of the other color to try to make them more muted. Certain other colors I raised the brightness of to contrast better.

I considered adding orange back to the palette, because it could represent fire, and be a pair to the red, which represents anger. I also made blue and teal contrast a little bit more.

At this point, I worried my colors were far too colorful and not at all fitting for a serious non-profit. I went back to the idea of red, green, and blue; and used only one shade for each. The last two shades I filled with black and white. With this palette, I could design a visual identity that uses mostly black and white, with the other colors only for accents.

Final Logo

Here is the final logo. Even though it doesn't wrap around the shapes as nicely, I decided to use Libre Baskerville for the logo because, if I use the same font in the body text, titles, and logo, it will hopefully make the branding stronger. After listening to the reactions of people I showed my logos to, I decided that this design for the penrose stairs is the easiest to understand. I changed the final color palette slightly. I decided to remove black and replace it with orange because I had trouble fitting black into the logo's design. Using accessible-colors.com, I brightened the turquoise to make the contrast between it and the green accessible.

Typeface

For the earth logo iteration, I used Minion Pro Bold Display. Like I said earlier, I had my heart set on a serif and bold font to convey seriousness and professionalism.

The final logo uses a serif font. When I designed the logo, I focused on how I could fit shapes into letters; so I didn't use an existing font. Rather, I simply drew angular shapes to create the letters. Fiding a pre-existing font with the same circular shapes would be difficult. I was worried having a font that only appears in the logo wouldn't be good for branding, so I changed it to Libre Baskerville.

For the subtitle, I used Julius Sans One, a thin sans font to contrast the main. I was thinking about what body font would fit well with Julius Sans One and the logo, so I chose Libre Baskerville, a serif font designed for legibility at small sizes.

3D Models

Over spring break, I had an assignment from my professor to make a 3D object using Tinkercad based on my logo. The first model I made with the mindset that it would only be used in a digital space. I may, at a later date, revise it for 3D printing. The second model is a design for a keychain.