Chameleon Branding
About the project
Role:
Art Director
Deliverables:
- Updated Logo
- Brand Refresh
- Creative Direction
Brief:
Evolve my personal brand to be more than just a logo. The brand should represent my creative values of simplicity, well crafted design and creative backed by a big idea.
About the project
I wanted to update my branding to something that felt more like ‘me’ and less trend lead. I decided to treat this like any other creative project I would approach and take myself out of the situation.
As an Art Director I take on work from multiple brands. Because of this, my branding has remained fairly neutral with a monochromatic logo working well alongside my creative work.
Outside of the logo, I have tried multiple brand looks, which relied on trend lead deaign – but nothing merged well with all of the brands I have worked with, so nothing stuck.
The logo is clean, minimal and simple which previously had a fun animation idea backing the curves on the letters showcasing my brand personality. Without the animation the logo doesn’t make sense and could be crafted better and have a more cohesive brand working alongside it.
A key challenge is being able to showcase a broad range of creative versatility as an Art Director and have my personal brand not competing with the work of my portfolio.
Because of this the identity should be centred around flexibility working across multiple styles and brands, and not centred around a trend lead aesthetic style.
The Process
Starting with the low hanging fruit to fix the logo, I resized the dots in the drop terminal R and tittle on the I to be more in line with design standards. I sharpened the serifs which were both slightly curved and also wonky- before finally reconnecting the drop terminal on the R
After this initial pass the curve on the P felt out of place with the rest of the logo. To keep some of the playfulness the curve added, I removed it from the P and added a more subtle curve to the serifs on all letters.
Although the A became the only letter with a disconnected serif, I decided to keep it this way as it added a statement to the rest of the logo and still felt balanced against the tittle on the I. The A is also used as a logo mark for smaller sizes so I wanted to keep it a little more unique and recognisable.
The final logo is well balanced and proportioned, showcasing the simple minimal design style I like to bring to my work, with a slight quirk and playfulness to it.
Instead of focussing on a fixed look, I wanted the brand to focus on a creative approach grounded in simplicity and good design principles. My bread and butter.
I wanted the brand to work harmoniously with the creative work being showcased on this portfolio, allowing each piece of work and creative concept to shine through.
Initial exploration revealed that no one single style could represent my brand fully, but I really didn’t want to end up with a simple inoffensive monochromatic logo like I had previously.
This lead to the key idea: what if I didn’t have to pick just one style, what if the brand could be any style? Like a chameleon takes on it’s surroundings, what if the April logo could take on different aesthetic identities.
The core structure of the logo wouldn’t change, but the colours, styles, textures and movements were fluid and could adapt to the work around it.
The logo becomes a canvas to showcase a huge range of Art Direction skills, working with other creative work and not against it. The brand becomes part of the creative process making it undetectable.
The Logo
The Brand
