Svetim Logo Suite

Content

Research Insights

Design Process

What I Learned

Next Steps

Key Research Insights

Client wants their logo to be rugged, playful, and clearly indicate what they are about.

Design decisions:
Incorporate camera iconography. Use a typeface that prioritizes legibility without being too clean-cut or simple. Possibly include mountainous motifs for the "rugged, explorative, and curious" personality.

Client potentially wants their logo to include their name, Svetim.

Design decisions:
I advised them to keep the name in the logo to boost brand recognition and cohesion across platforms where they are already using that name. I suggested we could pivot the design direction after the first drafts if they are dissatisfied with the text-forward look.

Client wants their logo to be minimal but not basic, otherwise is unsure of their desired design direction.

Design decisions:
‍We agreed to meet again at the end of two weeks to discuss rough drafts and clarify direction.

Design Process

Sketching (Week 1)

My first approach was to sculpt the text around a simplified mountain motif.
‍
Svetim = "we shine on" in Russian, a concept central to Svetim's creative pursuits. To tie this into their logo, I explored the use of sunrise colors and including "we shine on" directly within the logo.

Type Exploration (Week 2)

I collected several professional, simple, and legible types with some small creative touch.

I tested various combinations of letter spacing, boldness, serifs, and blunt/pointy-ness to achieve the "rugged but playful" Svetim brand.

Client Check-In (Week 3)

These were the rough drafts I brought to our second meeting, where he told me they all gave him the impression of a real estate brand.
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Main meeting takeaways:‍

Letters same height > stretched/compressed

Bolder > fine

SS symbol did not work for the client

Client wants to avoid overly triangular look

Black only > colored logo

No subheading

Refining & Variations (Week 4-5)

Back to the drawing board, I found Josefin Slab's bold italic with -5% letter spacing yielded the right balance of playfulness and ruggedness.

Bold letters, thick and sparingly used serifs --> grounded and weighty without being stern or overpowering

Customized "t" and "i" take advantage of the gestalt principle of closure to create the illusion of a camera

Slanted "e" with a short tail is playful without being unserious

A touch of "recording-video-red" draws atention to the camera motif

Once Svetim approved the design, I emailed the logo suite folder containing each variation in black, white, and 4 sizes from Small to X-Large to suit every use case.

Learnings

Negative comparison is helpful. My client was able to tell me "I definitely do not want triangles, I don't want to be confused for a real estate company!" after seeing what that might look like.

The client was very happy with the delivery of the logo suite folder with all of the size variations! They are able to quickly grab what they need to keep their file sizes and load times optimized.

Small details go a long way! I did not need to paint a whole sunrise to make the logo dynamic; a simple red dot, well placed, is enough to draw attention and communicate meaning.

This was a lot of fun to work on! I approached the design task like a puzzle, and tried to find the best design pieces to coalesce into the picture the client was hoping to see at the end.

Next Steps

Font Psychology

I did not know how a typeface could be used to communicate brand identity. It took some trial and error to find a good match, but with some more study and practice I want font-selection to become second nature.

Client Interviews

I will seek out resources to learn how to better help the client share about their brand and what they want they logo to communicate.

Comparative Audits

Audit related brands and their logos to get inspiration for both myself and my client. In future projects, I plan to prepare a folder of related existing logos in advance to aid in clarifying the design direction.

Research Insights

Design Process

What I Learned

Next Steps

Design Process

Sketching (Week 1)

Type Exploration (Week 2)

Client Check-In (Week 3)

Refining & Variations (Week 4-5)

Learnings

Next Steps

Font Psychology

Client Interviews

Comparative Audits

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