- [Instructor] The period of time
in between when you present your design directions
to a client and when they respond
with their feedback came be one of fear and loathing.
We all hope a client likes
what we created on their behalf
and we also hope any revisions they request
won't degrade a design once implemented.
In this movie, we're going to review the feedback
from Elevated Culture
and Cascade Lakes and respond to it.
So let's get started.
First, we'll start with Elevated Culture
and the design direction that Omar picked was this one.
Now, when I presented my design directions,
I said if he picked a certain design,
I would give him the other designs
that correlate with it stylistically
as secondary brand graphics
and that's what happened.
He picked this as his primary logo design
for his branding
and then the secondary graphics
are going to look like this.
Now, the one revision he did ask me to do
is in regards to the typeface on the secondary graphics.
I used a different typeface.
If you compare this one, this was the customized logo type
that I created.
This was just taking an existing typeface
and I customized this too
but it was a different style.
So he wanted the style on the primary
to match the secondary.
So on the secondary design,
let's take a look at the seal format.
You can see how the styling here compared
to how it is on the primary, they're different.
And so this was going to be a little tricky
'cause I customized that typeface on the first.
I don't have a font I can simply type out.
So I had to painstakingly arch it around a path manually.
And if I did a movie on that,
it would have probably taken over an hour
to record it because that's about how long it took me to do.
So I transformed this type
in the secondary brand graphic.
The style that goes together is the panther head
and the body of the panther here.
That's why these work well together
and they work well as a brand asset family.
So I'm going to turn on the revised type
and you can see how it changes.
This is with the correct typeface styling
and this is with the older style
that I first presented with the design direction.
So that was the only revision the client had
and obviously, we gave him all the brand assets
for the secondary brand graphic
with all the correct type.
So you can see the design over here
has that branded type in it now
and so does the seal design as shown on the right.
So that was good.
Now, as I was looking at this,
I realized a revision I need to make at this point as well.
And this is how art directing yourself works.
At every stage, you want to pay attention
to the details
because you don't want to just ah, it's good enough
and deliver the final art.
No, you want to scrutinize it
and this is when I realized the edit that I'd made
on the other art direction with the back leg,
I had the same problem here.
I didn't like this leg.
So I just printed it out larger, the brand mark,
in this case, the full body of the panther
and then on top of it, I drew out
how this leg should be
so it would compose better
and reflect the fact that he's walking.
He's not just starting to walk
as the other one kind of looked like
because of the way I drew it initially.
So this is the change I'm going to make here
and I do that to revise the brand mark.
So if you compare the new
with the old, I think the new looks a lot better
and it's a great pose
and of course, we update all the brand assets
for the secondary brand graphic with that change in mind.
So everything on this is moving forward
and I'll continue to develop out this project.
Let's switch over to Cascade Lakes
and see what the client feedback was on that.
So when I presented all of my designs to Cascade Lakes,
these were the seven designs I presented to him.
This went in front of their committee.
I didn't necessarily know they had a committee.
I knew there were investors
but I didn't know that they were the final decision makers.
They reviewed all of these
and they rejected 'em.
They didn't like any of 'em.
They couldn't come to a decision
on what design to use
so they just decided they didn't want to use any of 'em.
As I started communicating with the client
and going okay, why did this happen?
I went back to my creative brief
and reviewed their feedback
to make sure, ya know, I was on target
with what I thought their expectations were.
And I didn't see any problems there
other than the fact,
in the creative brief, he makes the statement a few times,
and if you watch the creative brief movie in this course,
you'll see this,
he references something being cool.
And I think that's the part
at which I might not have interpreted
that the way he meant it.
And what I mean about that
is look at the word cool.
In its most obvious form,
it means temperature.
It's talking about cold.
That's not what he's talking about.
He's using cool as an adjective, which means good.
So an example would be Angie has some cool new sunglasses
or so how was the concert?
It was cool.
So he's talking about they want that personality in it
that it would be a cool design.
Well, that is probably the most subjective term
you could use
to define a logo design
'cause I used the term cool quite a bit actually
but I know what cool means to me.
What it exactly means to somebody else
could be completely different
in terms of their personal taste and subjectivity.
And this is where this project
for this client kind of went off the rails.
But that said, I'm going to try to understand
what their aesthetic is
and this is when I requested them
to put together a mood board.
And this is what they provided me.
And they said we want to touch
on these kind of aesthetic cues.
So I see some linear things in this,
I see some graphic marks,
simple type, a reference obviously once again
to Cascade Lakes region in central Oregon.
I thought I'd covered some of this
in my first round.
I know I covered some of this in my first round
but now they're referencing a monotype down the bottom left
and maybe a seal-type approach
and the graphic down in the bottom right.
And it's at this point,
I'm not completely sure they even know
what they want because some of the designs I presented
in the first round would kind of check the box
on some of the aesthetic they're pointing out now.
But that said, I felt like doing a whole nother round
of designs technically,
although out of scope of what I quoted,
I wanted to make them happy
and so I agreed to do a second round of designs.
I wasn't going to charge 'em anymore
and that's what I did.
So I want to walk you through the second round of designs
that I created.
And starting with the number.
It's starting with number eight,
all the way through 15 as you can see on my layers
because I presented seven designs before
and now I'm doing two additional designs more than that.
So nine total.
This was one I played off of.
The monogram idea.
And using C and an S.
They also mentioned at this point,
we're thinking it needs to be simpler,
less color so it could work on packaging.
And I tried to get 'em out of the mindset
of packaging is a completely other entity.
How you handle branding on a package
could be simplified down to one color.
That doesn't mean the parent mark has to be that way
but it can be.
So they kept mentioning the packaging
and I'm going look, we can approach that.
That's a separate project.
We're going to do that and we're going to do it well.
I've done all kinds of packaging for beveraging
but I decided to show them exactly
what they're asking for is a simplified one-color version,
so you can see that here on the left
and obviously again, on the background
to represent Cascade Lakes.
I showed that in the previous round
that that was my focus,
to focus on that region and pick up cues
for stylistic symbolism
that we could use in the design.
So this was the monotype kind of aspect we're exploring here.
Here is one where we approached it
from a completely different angle.
What are animals common to that area?
Well, bears is a big one.
Black bears, brown bears,
they have several types of bears
in that area and if you go up in the forest
by the Cascade range, you're going to run into bears.
So I figured this would be a good representation
for a brand mark.
And so we worked into that.
That conceptual component with the mountains
with that whole region, which is beautiful
and created this unique mark.
So this was one other direction we presented.
Here's a third one.
I really liked this motif
when I used it in the first round
but what I did this time
is I aligned it with their idea
of simplifying the mark with different typeface
and this face, keeping it almost like a seal
since some of their imagery they showed had that approach.
And so we're going to show this them again
but in a different style.
This is another reason why I did nine
instead of seven.
I didn't want them to think oh, you're just recycling
what you already did.
One comment the client gave me
is could you try a few ideas
that would buck the system is what he said.
I had to have him clarify that.
What do you mean by buck the system?
Well, something that comes out of left field?
Something that would be unexpected.
Well, sure, we can do that.
Personally I was thinking I don't think they're going to go
for anything like that
but yeah, I can try that.
So once again,
we focused on the theme of a bear.
There's a lot of elk and deer in this area of Oregon,
so I fused those elements together
to make a very compelling graphic
that could represent their company.
It'd definitely get attention.
It's really cool.
I think it's cool.
I think a lot of people would think this is cool.
So I thought I was hitting on all cylinders with this.
So we showed this one as well.
Here's another one where we took that idea
of linear lines and simplified it.
In Oregon, in the Cascade Range,
there's a town called Sisters
and it's called Sisters because it's close
to three mountain peaks in the Cascade Range,
which are called The Three Sisters.
And so this is playing off of that.
And I also used it as a symmetric design
but when it reflects to the bottom,
it's kind of wavy to imply a lake,
to imply the reflection.
I really like how this one came out,
so this is also one we presented in the second round.
Here's another one to quote unquote buck the system
is I decide fine, buck the system.
We're going to push this really far in left field
and that is we're going to create a skull.
It has a mountain peak on top
and it has antlers.
I don't think there's any chance they're going to pick this one
but I included it anyway.
And then let's take a look at the next one.
This one, I really sat for quite a while
and I had worked on a mark
for a company about three years ago.
It involved having some forest elements in it
and so I pulled that up
and I was looking at it
and I realized oh, I could create a really nice graphic mark
that represents mountains specifically.
Sisters with three peaks,
it also easily represents forest
and it represents water
and out of all the designs I'd presented
in the second round,
I thought this one was really strong.
It's going to work great in one color,
it's going to look awesome on merchandise
and it's just, it's really nice
in terms of its aesthetic.
I love when negative shape matches positive shape.
So this one I thought
was a really strong direction they could consider.
Here's one that we created based off to the region itself
and focusing on the beauty of that area
to represent their brand
and also, you saw in a previous movie
where I'd built this one out.
And I like this one even more.
It frames the composition
and the visual narrative of that area.
It was at this point in the creative process
with elevated culture
that I was feeling very confident
and looking forward to wrapping up the project.
With Cascade Lakes,
I was getting a bit nervous,
which is warranted considering they never really clarified
that a committee was making the final design choices.
So I'm not sure what to expect now
and to be completely honest,
their communications with me after the first round
were somehwat vague.
We'll see how it all turns out.