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Friday, 1 October 2010

Identity Brief 1 - Matthew Whatley Architecture

So originally I was to produce this brief in a week and see what I produce. Although a challenge, for a starting point to possibly expand the brief, I would produce an initial identity in a single day. Identify a typeface to work with, create a logo and produce a sample of business cards to consider stock and layout. To make things a little more set in stone, I proceeded to digital print, and booked myself in for 3pm for double-sided business cards on 3 stocks and planned my day.


As a starting point, I asked matt to collect a few pieces of his work, pieces of inspiration and went from there. His initials being MW was the main focus at first because of the reflections/patterns that could be created, and the structural value of the characters boded well for a logo and progressed from there. 



Could the pattern be seen more as fabric that structural? Variations on check didn't feel as strong as individual characters. 





Using a piece found on welovetypography.com, adapted the W to work with MW and play off the triangular forms created.




Transferring the design over to graph paper allowed for more control over the design, and made translating it to a digital copy much easier.


Working with the sketched logo idea of triangle shapes, just began manipulating with curves and joining lines to create more organic shapes and get some feedback, I really like some of the imagery produced (including the logo treatment at the bottom of the document) but I don't feel it reflected the architectural value of the Matthew and work he would produce. I feel this in itself is a starting point for a possible typeface treatment?


With a focused logo design decided, I began with colour to enhance the design. With the rules of logo design to consider, I kept the colour palette to a minimum and worked with what I had to develop the logo. The original request/brief suggests red as a colour to work from. With Matthew open to suggestion after development, I kept with more neutral tones to develop from, which I felt benefits the design. With colour theory in mind, colours which demonstrate structure, ethics and environment were considered.


Choosing a typeface to represent Matthew and his practice was through a number of directions. Knowing Matthew as a good friend already put me in a good position for making faster decisions over type, Small caps, all lower case or a comfortable more conventional set up. were considered.




The final chosen typeface is Arndale Mono. A similar typeface 'sika' was also selected but was only a small caps typeface, and Arndale mono was chosen for the lower case characters. the addition of black tones and the green triangle gives more depth to the design, and green to symbolise positivity, ethics, trees, structure.


In the printers! james working his magic, managed to get in at 3.15, still pretty good going for a days work. Really happy with the results. The three stocks were 245gsm coated matt white, watercolour paper, and slate green mountboard (images to follow for MB) to get some variety of stock, and different considerations of cost. really happy with the results, and demonstrates the ability to make informed decisions in a matter of no time at all. 






The next logical step is to complete the identity stationery of Matthew Whatley for letterheads, compliment slips and a reproduction of his CV, which will be completed in due course. In terms of the logo development, I feel there is real scope to produce a working typeface in fontographer with the logo as a starting point.

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