By the Skin of My Teeth: Logo Sketches

Well, I can’t call them finished, and they sure ain’t pretty, but when I say I’m going to do something, I do it.

Over the past week, I’ve been working on rough, conceptual sketches for my new logo, and I definitely find myself leaning toward a particular style and layout. It amuses me to show you a few of those sketches at left, because this is where vision and mind-reading really come into play.

I almost never bring a client in on this stage of the design process. The mental translation of pencil “doodles” to final polished product is too much to ask of anyone, especially if their skills lie outside the realms of art or design. Too, they would have to be something of a mind-reader to “see” what I envision in the sketches I create.

Nonetheless, this is how all of my logo designs – and most of my other designs – are born. Sometimes a few sketches are all it takes for that ideal piece, and other times it takes page upon page. But this is where I cut loose with creativity, imagination, flights of fancy and artistry – guided heavily by hours of research, of course!

In DMT Artistry’s case, I’m in a particularly tricky situation. I’m both an exacting designer and an exacting client. There’s a very real danger of sketching myself in circles, and not settling on anything. That’s where the accountability of this blog comes into play.

Don’t let me do that!!

I look forward to coming to you next week with a decided direction and a significantly more detailed sketch.

On a separate note: Congratulations to Amy of UU@Home on winning last week’s blog challenge and the accompanying prize of a complimentary business card design!

Next Week’s Blog: Sketching My Way To Logo Nirvana.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”  ~Michelangelo

Dawn M. Tomczyk-Bhajan  |  DMT Artistry, LLC   |  www.DMTArtistry.com

All content Copyright © 2012 DMT Artistry, LLC, unless otherwise noted. All Rights Reserved.

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Branding Genius: Brought to you by the letter “D”

Something struck me the other day… believe it or not, it was the letter “W”.

Catching a television episode of MSNBC’s business news – okay, okay… it was actually “Storage Wars” – I was amused to see that the mega fast food giant, Wendy’s, is now marketing itself with a prominent character from our English alphabet: “W”.

It’s brilliant, really. If they play their marketing cards right, and saturate our minds with “W” = “Wendy’s”, we’ll have a hankering for a Dave’s Hot ‘N Juicy every time we spy that wonderfully wavy, ridiculously common shape. It might appear a little Pavlovian, but the marketing behind it is sheer genius.

As a business owner, wouldn’t you LOVE to have your business psychologically linked to something as integrated in our collective daily lives as, say, a “K” – like K-Mart; a square – like H&R Block; a bullseye – like Target; a bull – like Merrill Lynch; an apple – like (what else?) Apple? The potential benefits to your business would be remarkable.

Of course, choosing to represent your business with an octagon, so that every stop sign elicits an “oh, yeah, I’ve been wanting to buy (your product/service here) at (your business name here)” is only half the battle. It could be the most perfect correlation on the planet, but the connection doesn’t mean beans unless you market the living daylights out of it.

There’s a reason why Fortune 500 companies have multi-million dollar marketing budgets, and it’s got everything to do with saturating consumers with their carefully constructed branding messages. But remember, a smaller budget doesn’t have to limit your creative marketing. It’s all about figuring out the right message and targeting it to the right audience, using the right venues.

So, what’s YOUR branding genius?

This post has been brought to you by the letter “D” = “DMT Artistry”.

Dawn M. Tomczyk  |  DMT Artistry LLC  |  810.923.4582  |  dawn@dmtartistry.com

The Alchemy of Logos and Water Treatment

Let’s talk magic.

Dictionary.com defines alchemy as “any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.”

For the Harry Potter fans among us, this might suggest a stick into a wand, or a car into a flying vehicle.

But today let’s focus on a different kind of alchemy… the kind that transforms rusty, crusty tap water into pure, refreshing drinking water. And I’ll give you pro-level insight into the logo design that tells the tale.

The wizards behind this “uck!”-to-“ahhh!” water transmutation are none other than the Advanced Water Treatment experts of Hamburg, Michigan.

Owner, Brad Haskin, has seen it all – rusty, smelly, hard, discolored, metallic, eggy and noxious water. And with over 30 years in business, he and his team have mastered the science of creating pure, safe drinking water from the mire. It’s like magic!

Advanced Water Treatment‘s initial logo design did its duty, but just wasn’t telling the super-cool “story” behind the company and its services. So, DMT Artistry LLC did a little alchemy of its own, and conjured up the following design:

Here’s the story it tells…

First, take a look at the font. It’s contemporary, like the business itself, which Brad is continually evolving to remain a leader in the industry. It’s rounded appearance melds well with the fluidity of the water it represents. And psychologically speaking, round shapes are also more welcoming. Important, since Advanced Water Treatment is big on friendly service.

Oppositely, the crisp, no-nonsense lines of the “WATER TREATMENT” font draw attention to the company’s straight-shooter approach to what they do best: treat water.

Brad requested a brown to blue fade, showing the transition of dirty water to clean. The blue tones are mature (no hyper-chlorinated turquoise for these guys!), and refreshingly representative of pure water.

In our culture, white symbolizes purity, cleanliness and “the good guy” or “hero”. For all of those reasons (and to make them “pop” off the logo), the bubbles are gleaming white. They burble up out of the arrow, which symbolizes the actual process of purification. It all adds a little flavor of alchemy to the design!

That arrow, by the way, IS Advanced Water Treatment – the white knight “good guy” who transforms rusty liquid into pure drinking water. The arrow shape represents the process of moving forward, making a change, advancing toward something better.

There’s a visual flow to the design. A viewer’s eyes travel from the brown corner of the “A”, through the arrow, along the “dvanced” wave, down to the tagline, and back to the brown “A”.

The “A” itself stands alone as a perfect icon for marketing and branding purposes.

Abra. Cadabra.

If you’d like to learn more about our local water wizards, please visit their website – www.awtworks.com (also designed by DMT Artistry!)

DMT Artistry is always available to add alchemy to your design projects. Contact us!

Dawn M Tomczyk  |  DMT Artistry LLC  |  810.923.4582  |  dawn@dmtartistry.com

What Goes Into a Logo Design?

They reflect the culture of our company, they act as our number one visual “spokesperson”, they incite brand recognition, they are the “seal” we use on all of our marketing materials… so, why is it that logos inevitably wind up being the first piece of marketing we give to unemployed, cousin Jeb with the antiquated, pre-Adobe, graphic destruction program?

I’ll let you in on a secret: Every time this sort of travesty happens to a perfectly respectable business, we designers mourn quietly over the death of a design that could have been spectacular – that could have LAUNCHED the business, instead of anchoring it to ground zero.

There’s a great deal more that goes into a logo design than pasting arched lettering around a piece of clip art. In this blog, I’m going to give you the down-and-dirty version of what goes on behind the scenes of a true, blue logo design:

Interview. To create a truly unique, truly representative design, a designer will want to know about your company products and services, competitors, target audience, business colors, corporate culture, intended marketing use, your personality… and that’s just to name a few. You never know WHAT will spark an idea, and any designer worth their salt will delve as deeply as possible to generate ideas.

Brainstorm. The designer next digests the information, mulls it over, researches other industry designs, brainstorms, sketches, pulls out some hair, erases, sketches again, and ultimately returns with one or more Logo Concepts that embody your business.

Customize. Next comes the discussion about what feels right for the company, and what modifications may need to be made. Everyone is unique and, so, everyone has a different vision. These need to be understood and processed in order to make an excellent logo.

Design. It’s alive! At this stage, the chosen Logo Concept is brought to life! This is easily one of the most exhilarating portions of the logo design process.

Review. Edits are made. Then the new draft is reviewed. This cycle goes on for as long as it takes to hone in on that “right” design.

Finalization. The final logo is perfected and agreed upon by all parties.

And then everything’s done, right?

Wrong! Now the designer has to create and provide you with files of various sizes, types and resolutions for your various marketing needs. A wall-sized banner uses a completely different file than a website mini-graphic. The logo also has to be redesigned into a greyscale, black-and-white and, sometimes, one- or two-color version for those times when full color is not an option. In many cases, for more detailed logos, a simplified version also needs to be provided for smaller printing jobs, where details would get lost in the translation.

It’s not an easy job, but someone’s gotta do it. Or, rather, someone WANTS to do it, and that someone is me…

Because there’s few greater joys in a designer’s career than breathing life into the logo design that will send a company into orbit – or resuscitating one that cousin Jeb nearly annihilated.

Stay tuned. In upcoming blogs, I’ll share additional design-process secrets about logos I created for myself and my clients!

Business in need of a logo? Logo in need of a makeover? Either way, I can help:

Dawn M. Tomczyk  |  DMT Artistry, LLC  |  810.923.4582  |  dawn@dmtartistry.com

Client Spotlight: Shi Lessner Photography

Shirley Lessner, owner and photo-genius of Shi Lessner Photography, is the very definition of “networking”. Her pockets are a veritable rolodex of business cards for anything from hair salons to equine farriers, and she champions them with a zeal fed by her lively personality and her unshakable faith in the businesses she promotes.

Shirley exemplifies a good lesson: If you GIVE genuinely (and intelligently) without expecting to GET, it’s amazing what sorts of opportunities will present themselves. And I mean this in the business sense, as well as the soul-searching, state-of-your-moral-existence sense. You can see this principle in action in Shirley’s genuine approach to paying it forward. She’s enjoyed opportunities to photograph all sorts of fascinating projects, in addition to her forté, engagement and wedding shoots.

I’ve been privileged to work with Shirley on her logo design (see below), as well as continuing marketing projects.