Trademark Design
Creating Conceptual Trademarks
Timeline: 3 weeks
Role: Design Lead
Design Team: Emmaline Benson
Project Description: Create a conceptual trademark for two selected companies, with each trademark combining two ideas or images to represent the particular company.
Research, Ideation, and Process
This project was for my Trademark Design class where we were challenged to create and execute conceptual trademarks for existing companies.
My general design process involved:
Developing a Creative Brief for each company to define the target audience, communication goals, value propositions, and desired tone
Discovery and ideation to develop concepts and spark creativity through developing word lists and exploring imagery options
Developing and refining hand-drawn sketches of logos, with design iterations informed by peer design reviews
Translating hand-drawn logo sketches into digital format/roughs using Illustrator and making final design decisions, with iterations informed by additional peer design reviews
Adding typography to the logos, ensuring that the logo and company name displayed harmoniously at small and large sizes.
Through this project, I honed my Adobe Illustrator skills and importantly, learned to quickly crank out design ideas that aimed to connect with users. Learning to use Illustrator’s Polar Grid tool was a real ‘Aha’ moment!
Final Products
Lantern Moon is a knitting and crochet supply company originating from Vietnam. Their needles are made from premium wood and are handcrafted in batches by artisans. For this logo, I combined iconic Vietnamese lanterns with knitting and yarn imagery. The simplistic geometric pattern of the lantern references artisan woodblock patterns, something Lantern Moon often uses in their own branding.
Black Cat Books is a small bookstore specializing in the buying and selling of fine-used books. From vintage collectibles to rare first editions, Black Cat Books seeks to find hidden gems. For this logo, I turned the spine of a book into a cat silhouette. To pay homage to the theme of vintage, I chose to overlay a subtle stamp texture.
