(I don’t know why some of the pictures are black but if you click into it it shows the logo, they are all from the same website.)

Important inspirations:

1. I think the sun fits well with yoga so it inspired me to do a logo resembling the sun.
2. It looks like a plant with three leaves, connecting to nature. It is very symmetric, which gives off a very still feeling because there is no movement, connecting to yoga.
3. Very simple and clean and represents the product/company/brand its designed for.
4. I like how it manipulate the letters to represent horizon, I might not be able to do it, but it is something I’ve never thought of before so it’s very interesting.

This project is to design a logo for a Yoga studio called Kindred Yoga Studio.

Yoga is still, deep, calm, free, and should reach a state where the person is separated from the loud, busy, outside world and reach inner peace. In this case, the logo should represent this in some way in order it to fit and represent the yoga studio. Yoga is usually seen connected to nature (as seen in the pictures above), because nature is peaceful, quiet, and lively. Also, Yoga is used widely for both physical and mental health, and nature is a good place for a person to zone out, focus, and relax, so that’s the direction I want to go for designing the logo.

A good logo should:

• Be clear and recognizable.
• Others can redraw it.
• Will still look good and make sense in black and white.
• When sliced in half, still recognizable.
• Eyecatching and unique.
  
  

30 different ideas plus 6 variations of 5 out of 30 ideas. I chose to make variations of these five (cat, spiral, sun, sky, and jellyfish) because I felt inspired and knew that it was possible to make different variations of each. I also thought they were all connected with yoga in some ways, such as the movements of cats and jellyfish, the peaceful state in the sky, reaching up to the sun, and yoga mats (spiral).

Deeper variations of specifically the sun.

I chose the sun in the end because it symbolize positivity, reaching, perseverance, peace, etc. so I thought it would the best fit for yoga and it’s not immature or too boring. Yoga is also normally done with the sun shining, usually in the morning. Overall, yoga people could connect with the sun.

I started with 6 groups of 3 dots, but each group was too long and it looked very awkward. Next, I deleted one dot from each group, then deleted another until I got to only one dot. However, with 6 dots it doesn’t really look too much like a sun so I dragged the dots longer to form ovals, which looked nice to me because it sort of shows the sun is projecting sun rays.

I was satisfied with the fourth version of the sun so I felt like there was no need to make others.

Typography:

I want to have letters saying “Kindred” in one font and then “Yoga studio” in another so I tried a wide variety of fonts:

Teacher Feedback:

I was having trouble deciding so I asked Mr. Griffin, who helped me decide that Corraline is the best fit for “Kindred” and then I could try out Danis Handwriting and Long Story Short for “Yoga” and see which one fits best. Mr. Griffin also recommended me getting rid of “studio” to make it more simple and more visually appealing so that’s what I did. (I did try both fonts for “Yoga” but I forgot to screenshot and my computer decided that it wanted to restart itself so it deleted all of my unsaved work.)

Positioning:

Next, I had to decide how the three parts would go together (the sun, Kindred, and Yoga). I quickly decided that the sun and Kindred should both be centered or else the logo would be largely out of balance, so all there’s left was where to put “Yoga”

I settled for the third one in the end because the first two looked weird off-centered, and to my eyes, the third one was the most comfortable to look at.

Growth in Technical and Design Skills:

Logo from Panda Book Award

This was the logo I designed for the Panda Book Award.

I made this using Procreate while I made Kindred with Affinity. This panda was drawn by hand so the lines weren’t smooth and the sizes are a bit weird. I was determined about the fact that logos has to be circular so I drew this logo based off a circle. I didn’t know how to insert fonts and didn’t know the criteria of a good logo. This logo was way too complicated (for a logo) and won’t be readable when zoomed out. Also it is not eyecatching and unique. Now, for this Kindred logo, which I made after learning about logo making, has neat vector lines, doesn’t look bad in black and white, simple but still pretty, and it fits well with the two fonts I picked. Overall, my logos went from a complicated, unbalanced, too-detailed logo to a simple, clean, recognizable logo.

In affinity, I used the circle tool to make the circle in the middle and the rays around the circle to make the symbol which was pretty simple. I also explored the stroke and fill to change colors, during which I learned how to make the fill invisible. Next, I downloaded fonts from dafont.com and imported them into the font library which was interesting seeing fonts I personally downloaded from a different website pop up in the library. To center and move the three parts (symbol and two fonts), I used the alignment tools, which were convenient and way more accurate than eyeballing it. Most importantly, I learned how to use mockups: downloading a psd, opening it in affinity photos, selecting a layer, edit document, copy&paste, make adjustments, and then the logo magically appears on the assigned object. This was something I would never have learned outside of graphic design and it was fun to operate that whole series of actions.

Mockups:

Final Presentation:

Kindred Yoga Studio Logo PDF

Reflection:

The design brief was to design a quality logo for a Yoga studio called “Kindred.” The logo I designed was an effective response because the symbol, the sun, represents positivity and zen, which connects with yoga; the fonts used fit well with the symbol, making it more appealing and more complete. When sliced in half, the logo is still recognizable. The logo makes sense in black and white. The logo is simple enough so people who only saw it once could still redraw it. Along with the typography, the logo is unique identifiable.

What I would do next time would be to coordinate typography into the symbol so they would be together as a whole instead of two separate or three separate parts. I would also try a couple more versions or ideas in affinity so I could have more options even though I knew which was the one I’d use already. Thirdly, I would ask more feedbacks from peers so I can get new perspectives and ideas on the product so I’d know more of what “the people” thinks and design a better logo. Lastly, I want to TRY to make a little more complicated versions to see how they look in a certain context because some products fits better with simple ones and some look better with more sophisticated ones so the more explored, the better.

IMPORTANT EXAMPLES: “Make Art Not Friends” “Everything’s Magic” “Trend” (explanations within padlet).

Brainstorm:

Songs: Unstoppable by Sia, Giant by Yuqi, Someday by OneRepublic. I picked these three songs at first because it’s my recent favorite songs and when asked to think of songs, these three first came into my mind. I picked “I’ll rise up like a giant” from Giant by Yuqi in the end because when I looked through the lyrics of the three songs, this was the most iconic line and the line that stood out to me the most.

Rough sketches: (I only wrote the word giant for some of the sketches because I was trying to do it like one of the examples in the padlet (“Everything’s Magic) and like the example, there is one big word and the rest will revolve around the big word so I only sketched “Giant” first.)

More Detailed Development:

I did the first one with neon colors (inspiration gotten from “Trend” example in padlet) and with only “Giant”

I did the second one using the lettering grid. I was half way through and then I decided that it was not something I wanted to do so I moved on to the next design.

The third one was the one I spent most of my time on. In the upper left corner, I did a “Giant” like one of my rough sketches but then decided that it doesn’t fit that well and it does not represent the lyric or has anything to do with it in general.

For colors, I went on Adobe Colors and searched “Sunrise.” I searched “sunrise” because “I’ll Rise Up Like A Giant” has the word “rise” and the first thing that came to my mind was sunrise. I also really love sunrise in general so I just went with that.

I chose this palette because it had a “soft” feeling and I just thought it would work with “Giant” (in my mind, giants were always brown, so when I saw brown in the palette, in my subconscious mind, everything basically clicked). I used this palette for my first draft (the third design above).

Feedback:

My feedback partner guessed my music genre as pop, full of energy (which was correct). She also liked my color palette and thought it was a good fit. She pointed out that “giant” lettering in the top left corner doesn’t fit or has anything to do with the meaning of the lyric, this was why I ended up not using that design. My partner thought my design was creative otherwise and didn’t make anymore suggestions.

Change of Plan:

I worked on this design for a couple classes but then the more I worked on it, the more it didn’t look right. There were too many different fonts (taken off of DaFont) so it looked really messy; it doesn’t support/convey the lyric, it’s basically just a bunch of fonts mushed put together using the same color scheme; the quality of the lettering is really bad but I didn’t know how to make it better either.

This was when a new idea suddenly came into my mind (I don’t even know why or how I thought of it).

Example:

I got this when I searched for “splashed paint typography design” on google. The neon splashed paint in the background will help make the word stand out and it also adds variety to the whole design.

In order to make the “Giant” stand out, I decided to find a color palette with brighter colors:

I also wanted to decrease the number of fonts I had so I wanted only two fonts. One is more smooth for “I’ll Rise Up Like A” and a bulkier one for “Giant.” I settled on Mandoul Script (shown below) for the first part of the sentence because it was calligraphy (which is smooth) and looked elegant yet free. I had two choice for “Giant”: Antagonist and Elastic Stretch. Antagonist is just boldy and bulky while Elastic Stretch looked more modern and unique (in my opinion).

I couldn’t decide between the two so I tried both (by hand):

I wanted a contrast between the first part of the sentence and “Giant” so I went with Antagonist in the end because it had thicker strokes.

I remembered the example with the frame in padlet so I tried my design with a frame:

It fits and looked good but then I wanted to try something else. Since there is “rise up” in the lyrics, it made me thought of sunrise (as said before) but also smoke, because it’s up in the sky, so I thought maybe it could look cool if I added smoke in the background, which added dimension.

Final Product:

Lyrics and Type Poster PDF

Typography Musical worksheet:

Analysis: (Techno)

I bolded the word and enlarged it to emphasis it and provide a high contrast. I also reduced kerning to make the letters more compact. I put a couple more “techno’s” in the background and made it gray, so it looked like it’s echoing the dominant “techno.”

Reflection:

Using design terminology, how does your poster successfully communicate the style of the song?

The lettering of the first part of the lyric has long stems and with ascenders and descenders poking out, giving it a casual and natural feeling instead of each letter being straight and orderly with the same sizes (stems, bowls, legs, shoulders, counters, and bars). I used a sunrise themed color palette to do the lettering, each word is like a layer of the sunrise, slowly building up to the word “giant,” where the sunlight blasts out. The word “giant” is bold and the kerning between each letter is more equal than the first part of the sentence, which helps show how powerful and strong Giants are (each letter is standing upright with no slants and all the same sizes).

How did you manipulate the typography to communicate?

I grouped the sentence into two parts, emphasis on “giant,” making it — the iconic word of the song — stand out. The first part is free and light while “giant” is grounded and stable, showing a contrast (between two fonts). “I’ll Rise Up Like A” can go flying off to outer space while “giant” brings it all down and rise from the ground, strong. I hope to show the audience that no matter what you’ve experienced before, you can always try again, rise from the ground full of confidence and motivation.

Which design elements and principles are emphasized in your work and how does this help the communication and/or style of your poster?

Hierarchy, contrast, color, type, balance, and negative space. Hierarchy is shown by “giant,” surrounded by a blast of neon color, drawing eyes to the focus of the entire lyric (and song). Contrast is shown by the contrast of fonts and color (between black and neon colors), this helps differentiate and emphasis “giant.” The neon colors helps show the energy pop music gives off and also adds variety to the whole poster and makes it more eye catching and fun (visually). Type is of course included because the whole poster is typography. Balanced is shown by how the poster is nearly symmetric along the middle line, making it comfortable to the human eye to look at and shows progression (of the sunrise) as the ladder of words goes down vertically. Negative space is shown in the word “giant” where it looks like these five letters is made by erasing the paint, this helps the make “giant” stands out because is the only word not in the color palette (the word is in black) and black also gives off the feelings safe, grounded, and stable.

Design Principle: Cropping

What is the role of elements & principles in graphic design?

Elements are what is used to create a part of or a composition while principles are how the elements are used and how they work together to make a piece of artwork appealing. Each element have a characteristic that is unique to themselves and each principle have an importance. For example, a point is the smallest element (in size, but you can also enlarge it) and it creates a strong relationship of positive and negative space. Another example is the design element form. Form is unique because it is 3D, it shows both width and height, plus depth, creating a different dimension in a design. An example of an important principle would be balance. Balance is the visual balance of a design/artwork, it could be purposely out of balance so that a person’s eye would directly go to an object. However, if a designer/artist accidentally created unbalance, the piece could look weird and uneven to other people, which would so unprofessionalism. The elements that could be used in balance could be shapes, color, form, etc. The role of elements and principles is important in graphic design, for that they are what makes up a design and what make a particular design appealing, interesting, and unique.

What is this design task all about?

This design task is about creating a design focusing on one specific design element or principle and presenting it clearly. The main point of this assignment was to explore the different ways the element/principle could be used in a design and what effect it has on the overall design or just by itself. Throughout this task, I tried several designs which helped me learn more about ways of presenting cropping. When people design, they usually use all kinds of elements and principles to create the effect they want, which would be complex and deep. However, in this task, we were only allowed to use one as the main focus, which was challenging because my brain and hands added different elements and principles unknowingly during the design process. The overall effect the task should have is to teach other people about this element/principle and provide a clear, easy-to-understand example of it so other people would get what we are trying to present right away (hopefully).

Why did you design your illustration this way? (show evidence of your sketching, development, peer feedback & refinement)

This was the first sketch I had to show cropping. I was trying to present the idea that a corner of square got cut off and there are 5 different sized triangles but only one would fit. However, after talking to my peer and teacher, I realized there were many problems with this design. One problem was that both color and shape took too much attention here, if a person were to walk up to this, their first guess would most likely be shape, because there is a total of 6 shapes here. The colors here are appealing and vibrant, which was also a problem, because they steal the attention right away. So, I decided to modify it — still sticking with a square with a missing corner, but more simple, which is the final design I have now. I chose for the positive and negative space to be in the same color scheme because I thought it would show less contrast than two completely different colors, so maybe it would take the attention off of contrast a bit more. I decided to leave a frame surrounding the square because when I tried to put square exactly along the edges, it looked like there is just a sliver of dark purple in a square, which would not show cropping but more like a line. I thought this final product looked much better than the first “final” design because it is more focused on cropping instead of leading a person’s eye all over the poster, looking at a bunch of different elements/principles.

Design Principle Cropping PDF