Hi Ilya, hi everybody :-)

I would love to share my sketches and ask for your feedback.

Company name: Estate d'Espoir
Who they are: a charitable wine company
Positioning statement: "We believe in a dignified life for everybody. We offer our clients the joy of tasting a delicious high quality wine and the satisfaction of giving hope to people in need. All our proceeds go to charities that help war refugees have a better future. We believe that one small act of kindness encourages the next person to make an act of kindness and so forth creating a ripple effect with effects so much larger than anyone can imagine."
4 objectives: high quality - kindness - dignity - ripple effect

I don't know if you need it at this stage but this is the look and feel I'm going for:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 1 - student project

I would use a font like this for the company name, with the logo symbol placed above the name:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 2 - student project

I tried out the morphological matrix :-) Honestly I was a bit skeptical when I saw your video. I'm not great at sketching and I thought this matrix was going to make it even harder... BUT it was completely the opposite! Instead of my sketching process feeling like trial and error and hoping that eventually something good would come out of it, I immediately felt that there was a clear direction and it's so much easier to give it meaning. So, THANK YOU very much for sharing this method!!

I tried to avoid common themes like: a wine glass, a bottle and grapes

I hope I did it right. Here's what I did:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 3 - student project

Then I combined some ideas:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 4 - student project

These are the 3 concepts I liked most:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 5 - student project

1: on the left we have the vine which ends on the right in a heart (high quality kindness)

2: the leaf is starting the ripple effect which forms a heart shape (high quality kindness ripple effect)

3: the star grows bigger and eventually takes on the shape of a butterfly (high quality ripple effect)

My favorite is option 3 (though I would of course work a bit more on getting the details right). I think it's simple, elegant and easy to understand. It seems joyful and hopeful to me and gives a feeling of freedom too. I'm also in favor of this one because both number 1 and 2 use a heart which is a common symbol for charities and I would like to do something different.

Do you think this is a good concept to explore? Or do you think a different combination would be better? I appreciate all suggestions!

Thanks so much for your time and help!

Have a great day,

Mariko

--- UPDATE ---

Based on your feedback, these are the options I came up with for the logo. I did try to do something with a calligraphic font but I couldn't really make it work. I don't seem to have many ideas for it... However in the process I did find a calligraphic/script font that works well for the other logo too (option 12).

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 6 - student project

Of these options, I like 10, 11 and 13 the most. The idea of the white reflections is that they go from pointing down and backwards to pointing upwards and forwards. So that would stand for the positive change and getting back your dignity. Seems like I can't choose between them... though my eye always lands on 11, so I guess that's the one I would choose.

Do you think option 11 works well? Or would a different option be better?

Thank you so much for your advice!!

--- UPDATE 2 ---

I did some more experimentation on paper with the chosen concept:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 7 - student project

These are the versions I made in the software:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 8 - student project

I like number 7. I tried to give the stars and butterfly a consistent look by using very similar curves for the stars and the butterfly. I also didn't want the stars to be exact copies of each other since I wanted the second star to be the bridge between the small star and the butterfly. I hope I managed to do that.

Then I tried several (similar to what I had before) fonts and I liked this one the most:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 9 - student project

Do you think it's better now?

--- UPDATE 3 ---

These are my sketches based on what you sent me:

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 10 - student project

This is what I came up with. Those with a blue star are the ones I like the most.

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 11 - student project

First I tried different configurations for the stars, then I noticed (starting with 8B) that it's possible to show a complete butterfly in the negative space. I liked that idea because it makes it more interesting and hopefully easier to see what it is supposed to be.

I like the 4C through 8C because of the negative space butterfly. I tried to get the feelers of the butterfly in there too because it makes the concept more clear but I don't know if it's too much detail.

I also like 1D because it seems the most symmetrical and it's very simple. But I would have wanted something more rounded for a wine logo.

I'm not 100% happy with any of these, I think all of them need refinement. But I'm a bit stuck so I would like to ask for your advice first. My choice would be to either refine 8C or 1D. Do you think any of these is the right direction to go in?

--- UPDATE 4 ---

From the previous attempts I think only 1D has potential. Everything I did before with the more curly shapes, it doesn't work. It made me try some alternatives with straight lines (though I did end up again with a curly/rounded solution).

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 12 - student project

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 13 - student project

I really like the last one. It still has 2 stars but like this it's easier to create something somewhat symmetrical. When I had the two stars apart there was always something off.

This way it also shows the ripple effect which this company strongly believes in. So I think that is great. It will be possible to use these ripple effect lines in custom icons. And I will also be able to use the butterfly separately in some application.

Sketches for Estate d'Espoir - image 14 - student project

Mariko Barra

From grey to great! - Brand Designer

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