Lindsay Marsh

Logo Design and Branding - From Concept to Finish

Alexander, Thank you so much for posting your branding project! Great job working through this and developing a great branding standards manual. I think the last business card mock-up looks fabulous, I love the deep red color. What does safeline do exactly? Trying to decipher the icon you developed.  Thank you you again for participating and posting a great project!

Hey Lindsay,

thank you very much for your comment :-)
I forgot the actual business cards, I noticed. I will add them later.

Safeline is a solicitor specialised in sports issue claims for extreme athletes like mountaineers or climbers. So I choose some mountain peaks and some kind of carabiner symbol on top with a line leading down (or up) so combine the aspect of safety and the goals they strive for. 

Btw it was great to watch your progress. It was so exciting to see you choose the fonts and think all the time "Don't take that one! Take the other one!" :D
I think it's a really good way to help people understand how such an idea develops and how to build a brand step by step.

So glad you enjoyed the process! I wish I had live streaming on here as I could ask the students live which font they prefer! I always wonder what students are thinking when I go "this one" or "that one"! ha!  

Now that I understand the symbol and how you came up with that concept. Knowing the company goal, I think that is a pretty clever symbol. As long as you communicate somewhere on business card a mission statement or phrasing that describes the company industry I think that would be helpful to people not familiar with it. Perhaps a version of the logo with the company tagline or mission. Once again, great work!

Yeah, it's always a nice thing to have this kind of interaction with others. Especially when teaching. Maybe that's a feature worth to add to Skillshare :-)
Would make the AMAs easier, too.

I added the business card (and corrected the misspelling nobody has seen *cough*). There's the specific area the solicitor is working in. I personally don't like business cards which are packed full of stuff. But you're absolutely right, there has to be a hint what the solicitor is actually doing (and maybe an address). I think that's a good middle way on the card.

Misspellings are my thing, seriously I may have a spelling disorder. I never have been able to spell. I have gotten in trouble early on in my career for badly placed misspellings! I send everything to an editor or my husband for review before I go to press with certain design items. Ug! 

A streaming option would be perfect!  

My only comment on the biz card is to close the tracking or kerning on the three lines of texts at the bottom just a tad. Spacing works great for all caps but lower case lettering sometimes it can look stretched visually. Maybe a tad more whitespace below the three lines at the bottom and the edge of the card to prevent problems with bleed and the printing process. Other than that, stellar stuff! 

I do enjoy these exchanges, you do not get to have this kind of interaction on youtube with students and instructors, so I really do enjoy skillshare for teaching!

It would be very helpful to have a spellcheck in Photoshop/Illustrator! I'm not even sure if there's one in Indesign ... 
Yeah, having somebody check your work is so important. There's (nearly) nothing more embarrassing than presenting your great design work and everything and then there's a typo.

Thanks for the advice! I'm not sure if I understood you correctly, but I decreased the gap a bit and pushed the address a bit up. For the bleeding: I'll add that to the printing file, cause I find it easier to imagine what it will look like afterwards. Or do you recommend working with the bleeding beforehand? In my experience, it doesn't make much difference. But I'm mostly doing posters and rather big formatted stuff, so maybe it's better when working with those small cards?

Yeah, it's really great to be able to exchange! It helps a lot and it feels also more intimate and productive than the Youtube comments section. Though, on the other hand, what does not? :D

The revisions look great. In illustrator I can add bleed in the document set up and when I export it, if I do not check "include doucment bleed" settings, it will export without using bleed, so I can show my clients a preview without bleed. So I work with my file with the bleed on, so I know how much I need to bleed off photos and content but can export without bleed for previewing. 

Some photos that need to bleed off are close calls. I have worked on a magazine add the required a whole inch bleed on all sides! That is crazy big! I had a zoomed in photo of a face, and I had to be creative after bleeding it off the edges by an inch without cutting off vital parts of her face, I ended up featuring the outside edges of the face into a similar background color to give myself more room to bleed it off. 

Some photos are a bear to bleed, some are easier. 

Also, I have a Facebook group for my design students that is also a great hangout place for other designers. We have some great discussions there too! Also, feel free to post work for critique! <a target="_blank" rel="noopener external nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/LindsayMarshTeachesDesign/">www.facebook.com/groups/LindsayMarshTeachesDesign/</a>

I get a lot of spam comments on my youtube videos, does not seem like a great place for a discussion like this is.

The bleed-function in Illustrator is a really good hint, thanks! In Photoshop it makes a huge difference if you add a few inches around a big poster, so I often add it in the end after reducing some layers. In Illustrator, it's much easier. But it's really annoying that you cannot have a mode where you can just see the artboard and still work on it, so things stick out. Makes it rather hard to work, sometimes.

Thank you for the Link to Facebook. :-) But that's not my social media, unfortunately. But what do you think about a Group at Skillshare? If you haven't one already. I'm not certain what they are good for, but maybe they are there for just such things?

Oh, and something came to my mind which might help other people with doing a class project for this class: I always find it very hard to get ideas on where to start. I mean, if you want to start a project but have to think about a mockup company or client, it's pretty hard. Maybe a small list of suggestions like "Pizza restaurant (fancy, modern, in Brooklyn) - Wellness Hotel (high class, expensive, Côte d'Azur)" would help others kickstart their project? :-)

Thank you for that very interesting and easy to understand class! :-) I had fun following you and working on my workflow. Though this work isn't really detailed and I should do some more before talking to the client, I really like the concept.
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<img src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/250e4fa3" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 1 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/250e4fa3 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/250e4fa3 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">
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<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/359157a0" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 2 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/359157a0 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/359157a0 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy"><img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/59eaa891" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 3 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/59eaa891 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/59eaa891 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">
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1st draft:
<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/8aa34b75" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 4 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/8aa34b75 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/8aa34b75 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">
&nbsp;2nd draft:
<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/edc22712" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 5 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/edc22712 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/edc22712 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">
<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/863aba21" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 6 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/863aba21 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/863aba21 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">
<img style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" src="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/36e6a955" alt="Logo Design + Brand (Solicitor) - image 7 - student project" srcset="https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=600,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/36e6a955 600w, https://static.skillshare.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=80,width=1000,format=auto/uploads/project/a5c549e56a7acfd8dda5bc300d25d8e0/36e6a955 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 600px, 100vw" loading="lazy">

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