I first came across Simon Walker's work a few years ago, and couldn't believe how brilliant his works were. His presence on Skillshare was the sole reason I signed up - so show him the love Skillshare and get him back for an advanced class!

Freelancing in design is tough, very rarely do I see projects that have the flexibility to incorporate my love of custom lettering with a vintage aesthetic. Another restraint on this direction is the time spent on developing a logo like these, and time is $.

Luckily I had a client come to me recently over redeveloping the logo for his business. It is a good fit for this class as he decribed his vision for a script based logotype with exisiting mountains and water elements. I decided to put some 'class time' into designing a logo fitting his buisness as best
I could.

My sketching process:

Deli & Cafe Logotype - image 1 - student project

After sketching I jumped to the computer, however in hindsight I always do this too fast. I should have refined my idea both larger and with more detail to decrease the time spent working flaws out on the computer.

With a mouse in my hand I set about creating a loose grid and using Simon's technique of a single-width line work of my lettering. I have used this method before, and also a method of placing anchor points where I wanted to create the 'thicks n thins' in the letterforms. But after watching the tutorial I tried it again, and it is probably the easier to shape.

Single-width line work:

Deli & Cafe Logotype - image 2 - student project

Quite easy to get a little discouraged at points like these in the process. I have had many moments in lettering where I pull the pin due to a lack of faith that it has potential. However, it wasn't an option as I have to show the client my concept so I continued the lengthy task of point tweaking.

Getting closer:

Deli & Cafe Logotype - image 3 - student project

There was still alot of tweaks needed to the logotype at this stage. I also decided to beef it up as I was concerned it was too delicate to work with the mountains and water I had envisioned to surround it.

Also had different versions of the 'e'. But eventually went with the more traditional:

Deli & Cafe Logotype - image 4 - student project

After more development I have reached this stage. I am quite happy with it mostly. But like others out there reading this, I always see room for improvement. I can't justify more time spent on this as I often wonder how long the experts take on projects of this nature. As there is no way my clients would pay me for this if I billed them honestly for this. I have a few tricks and observations I have learnt to work faster on these, but probably not fast enough.

Current version:

Deli & Cafe Logotype - image 5 - student project

Simon Horner

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