- [Voiceover] I wanna share with you a simple method
I use in my logo design projects.
I call it concept math.
It's not hard and I think it'll help you think through
ideas and discover potential cues that lead to clever
design solutions.
So, let me show you how this works.
If you're approached by a client, in this case,
a small town, and they want you to create a logo
to represent that town, this is how I approach
that exact project.
I look at the landmarks in that town.
In this case, they had a very distinct bridge.
I look at the indigenous species related to that town.
And in this case, they have this specific species
of bird, and ingret, I think is how they are called,
and I took those two visual reference points
and used it as math.
I took the bridge plus the indigenous species
and that is what formulated the logo mark
that I came up for this town, North Aurora,
it's based in Illinois.
And here's another iteration where I took the circular
motif of this design and used it to lock up this direction
and that's as easy as it gets when comes to conceptual math.
It's a way of visually thinking, making associations
based off of the genre, the company, the area,
all the information that you gather before you even
start the creative process, and then using it
to make visual math decisions and locking 'em up.
Let me show you a few more to explain this.
If you took sensors and you add to sensors
furrows from farming, what you could come up with
in creating that was an iteration for a company
called Three Notches Technology.
Now this is a company based off of the East Coast
and it's by an old route that the colonialists used
when they were fighting the British in the Revolutionary War
and it was called Three Notches Road, hence the name.
So, I played off of the name to come up with the three
furrows, and then the plant, and then the technology
because the whole tech for this company is using sensors
to help farmers grow their food and to manage
water resources.
And here's another iteration of the same mark.
Now, I can't always control how a project goes
and in this case they decided to change the name,
but they love the iconography I came up with
and the marks I came up with,
so, we used that with the new name, which is Fidelis Greens,
and we still played off of the three aspect with the icons
in the middle, there, but it all started by using
simple concept math.
Now, here's another one.
This one's based out of Portland, Oregon, and it involves
somebody who does massage therapy, but they also had bought
an isolation tank where you can float in it
and it's a form of relaxation.
So, I used visual math by taking the profile of a face
and then taking the metaphor or the visual cue
of an island, and then that helped me to come up
with the idea that she went with for her company
called Float North.
So, that's kinda the way you can think about it.
Now, obviously, these aren't the exact images
that came to mind when I was thinking about this,
this is just to help explain this concept and how it works.
But picture in your mind the various visual ingredients
that make up the idea that you're trying to design for
and those associations are gonna help lead you
in the right direction to pick graphically.
Now, you can use a lot of different cues in order
to help you figure out visual math.
It's not always as literal as this mark, for example,
but it can help you conceptually discern and figure out
a possibility of what you could do.
So, here's another one, a wine glass,
plus a bird,
will help you figure out an approach.
In this case, it was a brand for Gallo wine.
All they had approached me with was we want to do
a negative space logo and the product line
is called Instinct and we want it a bird of some sorts.
And so, I used those visual ingredients to kind of help me
deduce and figure out what I could do as a possible
concept and direction.
So, let's take a look at another one.
So, if you take a hammer plus a branch plus a specific
brand color, in this case a green color, what would this
help you come up with and produce?
Well, how about a logo mark
for Sustainable Contractors Association?
So, it's not hard, anybody can do this.
This is just a simple, practical way of thinking through.
Now, the last one I want to show you, here, is a project
that I been working on for the last month or so,
but I use the same methodology to kind of help guide me.
Now, when you collect information up front,
this is the importance of having a creative brief,
a lot of the information in that is gonna help you.
So, let's take a look at why that is with this.
When this client approached me, he's based out
of Slovakia, of all places, over in Europe,
and it was a brewery he is starting up,
and so, in his creative brief, he took the time,
because of the questions I asked, to answer some information
about the name of his company, how he came up with the name,
what the name means to him, and why it's important for him.
Well, out of that came the fact that his name was based
off of Slovakian mythology, so it comes from
the Slovakian culture, that's what the flag represents,
plus the letter T, the name he came up with was Trot,
T-R-O-T, so, I'm using the letter form of the T.
The mythology based in Slovakia is talking about a character
named Trot who fights the winged snake creature
and defeats him with a battle ax, or a golden ax
as it were in the story, so, that's what the ax represents,
and then he rides away in victory on horses
and there's thunder and lightning.
That's where the lightning bolt comes it.
And then, in the creative brief, he just mentioned,
as a side note, that he likes the shield as an image,
and so, he said, if I could, could I work that into it?
So, these were the conceptual math points
that I kind of put together and formulated,
and so, I took the letter T shape, based off of
the mythology, and came up with this design
that he loved.
And so, I used the battle ax with the letter form of the T
to create a letter form, a graphic letter form
representation of a T, but it's actually a battle ax
with the lightning bolt.
I used the shield because he liked it
and the name Trot and it came out to this brand mark.
This is just a simple way you can use concept math
to come up with a really great design for your client.
Now, using concept math to approach your ideation
on logo design isn't hard.
It's a very simple method to help you make associations
with diverging facts, images, and information,
that when combined, can reveal some clever visual motifs
and foster new ideas for solving graphic problems
when designing a logo.
Now, if you want to see even more ideation methods,
make sure to check out the original
Foundations of Logo Design course.