I forgot to post my design yesterday! Aagh! I can’t believe it. This is a follow up to the pocket watch design from Friday. I did do this design yesterday with the intention of publishing it on time so I feel that I have not missed my goal. It will be the revised icon for The Grannie Project based in the Philadelphia area. The Grannie Project is a rescue organization dedicated to helping senior pets.
At the end of August I embarked on a new project for the Potomac Bonsai Association. They are quite in need of a new website and I rose to the challenge to help them. At the beginning of the process I created a few rough page mockups and included a redesign of their logo. In all honesty, I didn’t think they had a logo and I wanted to raise the level of their “brand” in the public eye as part of their soon to be released, new website.
As it turned out they were already in the middle of elevating their branding with a standardized logo. So my idea was quietly rejected when they sent me their logo in response to my first mockup submission. No worries. At first it was difficult for me to warm up to the logo they presented but this feeling has passed and I am actually starting to like the logo they are using. I won’t discuss their logo except to say that it is official, and approachable.
I will, however, discuss my logo design which will no doubt fade away quietly into my digital archives of designs to be scrapped for parts for another future project, if it is lucky enough. 🙂
The Potomac Bonsai Association started in 1970 and I don’t have much historical reference for their brand image although I vaguely recall their look from the 1990’s. I have also been paying attention to them during the latter part of the past decade (and as of this year I am a proud member). They seem to go with the flow design-wise, accepting the style of whomever is creating their collateral at the time, whether the creator be professional or amateur. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.
My idea was to go modern with a slight retro twist. I have been inspired a great deal by two design aesthetics lately. First, there is a side of me that is attracted to European, Swiss modern style (perhaps it is all my dealings with Bonsai Empire, based in the Netherlands). 🙂 I have always loved design elements conforming to a grid using clean sans serif typography. Second, is my affinity for American, mid-century modern design. I love the advertisements, casual typography and cars from the 1940’s to the 1960’s. You might think that such differing styles would not meld well but they can produce a nice juxtaposition.
I also wanted to break the mold of bonsai logos. Traditionally they are always a silhouette of a tree enclosed, in a circle. The circle is usually reminiscent of the rising sun of Japan and situated as a background element. The typography is generally a clichéd, oriental or mystical brush script. This theme can be done tastefully but usually it is not and I was not even going to go there.
So, here is what I did. I wanted the image of a tree, a bonsai. But I did not want to create a literal silhouette. No Chinese brush, or charcoal sketch renditions. No clichés. Also no big circle placed to inspire the rising sun. I did, however, utilize the circular shape. I created a large square grid of many small circles and began playing lite-bright. After I created an image that resembled a bonsai from several groups of circles, I extracted just the ones I needed from the grid. The resulting tree-shape is a modern image that uses positive and negative space which is a very important aspect of bonsai design.
In bonsai design, you use the foliage areas of the tree to frame the trunk. In this way a good design will guide the viewer’s eye to see the parts of the trunk that lend to the illusion of a miniaturized version of a much larger, ancient tree. The foliage is also used to hide weak or flawed areas of the trunk or branches that detract from that illusion. In my modernist design the many circles are used to create the foliage and the pot. The negative space forms the trunk and branches.
For typography I wanted to incorporate a script, but again, no clichés. I chose an elegant but informal script called Charme. The characters have smooth wide strokes that modulate calmly from thick to thin. On some characters you get an abrupt, terminating stroke, like at the top of the ‘o’ and the dot of the ‘i’ in the word Bonsai. This hints at an oriental brush but it is a subtle effect. I also wanted to use a transitional or sans serif typeface to create an official or credible tone to the composition. I chose to set the word Potomac and Association in all caps using Gill Sans.
Perhaps some refinement is in order, but overall I like this design and thoroughly enjoyed working on it. I’m sure it will emerge from the dust bin of my hard drive for another project and get a second chance at life someday.
Thanks for stopping by!
I swore (to myself) that I was not going to do dedications, or birthdays, or holidays with CC 2012. However I ran out of time today and I am busy administering a Facebook page that is having a virtual party for a kitty birthday. So I am posting a design I made to plug that event.
This is my cat Shelby who has diagnosed with Kidney disease several years ago. For nearly a year she has been battling the disease and has overcome hurdle after hurdle. We never imagined that she would live to see her birthday today, but she is still fighting. Rock on Shelby and Happy Birthday!
I love when material presents itself. Tonight we went to Red Robin for a burger and fries and as I was about to dip this fry in ranch dressing I paused and noticed how much it resembled the Nike logo. I just had to use it for my Daily Design. I still have the fry and will also be putting it on eBay later if any of you are interested.
I spent a little bit of time on today’s design. This is a redo of the Bonsai Today Magazine cover. I chose the Logo that I created on the 22nd. If you go to that post you will see the original magazine cover. My main gripe with the cover design has always been the typeface chosen for the word Bonsai. Other than that the cover design is brilliant. It draws the readers focus to a masterpiece bonsai and gives some brief descriptions and a brief list of the items you can expect to find on the inside of the issue. I have kept true to the design strengths of the original in my layout below. The main alteration in my version is the inclusion of my Bonsai Today Logo as well as changes to the typesetting for the issue number and issue date. I also wanted to honor John Naka so I chose one of his creations, which is also perhaps my favorite bonsai of all time, “Goshin, protector of the spirit”. John Naka’s contributions to modern bonsai are many. The small photo to the bottom right of the tree is a photo of Naka with the tree in 1980. It’s also worth mentioning that the 11 trees in this composition symbolize Naka’s 11 grandchildren. Naka passed away in 2004. I was a big fan and this is a little tribute to him from me.
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See you all tomorrow.
Sean
Today’s design is a lazy one. This is a variation on the Bonsai Today magazine logo. I chose to use green this time and I used Clarendon Bold for the word Bonsai. That’s it. Hope you like!
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See you all tomorrow.
Sean
I spent a large part of my morning pruning my meager bonsai collection which has inspired today’s design. Today I decided to experiment with the Bonsai Today magazine logo. This was a magazine published by Stone Lantern during the 1990’s and 2000’s. The magazine is currently out of print but the publisher manages a website called Bonsai Bark which contains great articles on the sublect. I used to look forward to getting my copy every quarter I believe, or maybe it was every two months, I can’t remember. It was a great magazine and contributed greatly to my bonsai education. Here is a cover from one issue.
I chose to change the typeface and incorporate an icon, which I created, of the silhouette of a bonsai tree. I kept red as the primary color but used a slightly darker version. Shown below are two variations. Tomorrow I will revisit the logo and experiment some more. See you then.
Attention: Now you can receive my daily updates on Twitter and Facebook. If you are on Twitter please follow the blog by clicking here. If you are on Facebook then become a fan of the Circadian Creative’s Facebook page. Help me get 25 Facebook fans this week! Click the link in this post, or the Facebook icon in the right hand column of the home page. As always, thank you all for your support!
See you all tomorrow.
Sean
It’s late. I’m tired. Here is today’s submission. Another take on the Stone Lantern logo. I obviously whipped this one up in a jiffy. Same typeface rendered in an arch this time. I think it’s pretty good actually. I will spend more time on it tomorrow. I have an off day and I will probably be inspired as I plan to be spending some quality time with my bonsai trees. See you then.
Attention: Now you can receive my daily updates on Twitter and Facebook. If you are on Twitter please follow the blog by clicking here. If you are on Facebook then become a fan of the Circadian Creative’s Facebook page. Help me get 25 Facebook fans this week! Click the link in this post, or the Facebook icon in the right hand column of the home page. As always, thank you all for your support!
See you all tomorrow.
Sean
Today I took some time to do some more work with the Stone Lantern Publishing logo. See the previous post from yesterday to see my first rendition and get an explanation of the company.
Today I changed the orientation of the elements. My illustration of a stone lantern takes center stage between the words stone and lantern. The publishing company portion is still set smaller in the same typeface as yesterday’s version and acts as a foundation for the rest of the logo in conjunction with the stroke that separates it from the top, more prominent elements. It is also set in a darker color, as is the lantern shape. I chose a slightly lighter shade of gray than yesterday’s design. The name Stone Lantern is set in the same green color that I chose in yesterday’s design. I changed the typography to a more traditional face, Americana. I like the flared serifs which hint at calligraphy. Calligraphic character forms are typical in oriental design and art but the typeface is traditionally Western (European and American). I hope this blending of appearances translates into the fact that oriental arts such as bonsai have become quite popular in the Western Hemisphere. That’s it. I hope you like!
Attention: Now you can receive my daily updates on Twitter and Facebook. If you are on Twitter please follow the blog by clicking here. If you are on Facebook then become a fan of the Circadian Creative’s Facebook page. Help me get 25 Facebook fans this week! Click the link in this post, or the Facebook icon in the right hand column of the home page. As always, thank you all for your support!
See you all tomorrow.
Sean
Today I decide to experiment with a logo for one of my favorite publishers, Stone Lantern Publishing. Stone Lantern has really changed my life, just as much as Apple or Adobe have. Stone Lantern publishes books and magazines dealing with the oriental, botanical arts such as bonsai and ichibana. For me it is the art and science of bonsai that has changed my life. Bonsai is for me what religion is for many people. I owe much of my education in this realm to the many books and magazines that Stone Lantern has published since I began my horticultural and spiritual journey in 1994. My bonsai story is a long one so I will save it for another time and another blog.
The stone lantern logo as it exists now is not bad. Stone lantern is not as much about their logo as some other company’s may be about theirs. Stone Lantern is definitely more about their products, the books and magazines they publish as well as retailing other products such as tools. They are well known and well supported by the international bonsai community. In terms of design they are very basic. One could argue that the subject matter of which they publish is their brand identity and is the primary aspect of their design as a company. Perhaps their are other reasons, I’m not sure. If you visit their website you will quickly see that visually they are keeping things simple.
The challenge for me is that I would like to escalate their logo visually to something with more depth but keep that visually simple image that they seem to embrace. Today I may not have accomplished this goal but I am going ot spend a few days working on concepts that I think Stone Lantern might appreciate.
For today’s image I used a contemporary, sans serif typeface called Cronos. It is a font which I believe feels at home in natural or ecological settings. To me it’s characters say fresh and natural as in food. Or green and ecologically sound as in clean energy. It is the ecological sensibilities which I have attempted to tap into today. Bonsai is a a natural art involving living material. It has been described to me in many ways but one of my favorite descriptions is that bonsai is a “partnership between man and nature.” Again, a topic for another time and another blog. Graphically I created a silhouette image of a stone lantern. The company currently uses such an image. Mine is more rounded and their current image is more detailed and angular. For color I chose dark gray to signify the solid foundation of stone, and green to signify the living subject matter of Stone Lantern’s published materials. That’s all for today. I will work more with this logo and see what else I can come up with. Hope you like!
Attention: Now you can receive my daily updates on Twitter and Facebook. If you are on Twitter please follow the blog by clicking here. If you are on Facebook then become a fan of the Circadian Creative’s Facebook page. Help me get 25 Facebook fans this week! Click the link in this post, or the Facebook icon in the right hand column of the home page. As always, thank you all for your support!
See you all tomorrow.
Sean
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