Logo
We've had some really great compliments on our logo in the last couple of weeks. I thought I'd be interesting to show some of the process we went through in developing it.
I've done some branding in the past in my client work, but I'm well aware my stuff can be a little hit and miss. I used to prefer it if clients would come to me with a logo I could tidy up, tweak or re-imagine, rather than go from scratch.
Pleasingly, I'm good friends with a chap I consider to be Singapore's premier go-to-guy for branding, Jussi Edlund at Supershapes. His great work with gothere and the Singapore Philatelic Museum shows the level of awesome that he can bring.
His and my skill sets dovetail, he's more of an artist than I am and I'm more of an engineer than he, with some nice crossover in the middle. We've been good critics of each others work over the last year or so and even done some work together.
Critically his work hits an aesthetic sweet spot for want we're trying to convey in Gameplan - simple, bold and straightforward.
On completing Jussi's esoteric design questionnaire I think we had a pretty clear idea of our target. A brand with flexibility that can adapt to both digital & print and work in a variety of scenarios and sizes and critically demonstrated Gameplan is a tool for sport.
We met early in the project, knowing we needed to have something we liked for echelon last week. His initial thoughts were heraldic and this was an area which immediately seemed to say 'sport' whilst avoiding narrowing our brand to any specific. We'd also given an indication that 'chunky' was a direction we wanted to go in for fonts.
His first results can be seen in the following image, you can see he nailed the font we ended up using on his first pass: Vitesse from Hoefler & Frere Jones.
We think he nailed it, so we'll let him have his say...
The closest to any kind of league I've ever come was joining the cycling club a few friends started about ten years ago called Taxfree Wheelers. Our only raison d'etre was to bike to 180km to an island between Sweden and Finland (there was a ferry ride in between), and then taking the slow boat home while consuming beer, enjoying the buffet and buying whiskey tax free. Yet, I was quite excited about the idea behind Game Plan, but perhaps more about the chance of working together with Andy, whom I know to be a very capable developer, and Arun, whom I've grown to be quite impressed by.We love it but if you don't like the logo your ennui cannot harm us; our logo is like a shield of steel!The first thing we did was to brainstorm freely about what our views of Game Plan should be; how we want people to perceive the service. We quickly settled on things like big and bold, simple, something that is scalable and that'd fit any team sport. I was playing around with both purely typographical ideas, but also with ideas around team insignia and shields and the G (as in Gameplan, for those of you just joining). After some discussion, we agreed that the team symbol idea was the way forward.
After we've figured out the way forward, it was more about tweaking the symbol in relation to the typography, testing out different colors and combinations. We felt that having a symbol that's this strong, color itself was no longer as important a differentiator. Instead, we opened up to accepting different colors, depending on the context. This way we could add an element of playfulness and dynamism to the identity.
I look forward to seeing what Andy and Arun will develop, and I'm confident that it'll be awesome, and I'm hoping that I can continue to be a part of what they're creating, despite my general aversion towards team sports.
