A first look at some of the brand identity work we’ve done for casting director Julie Harkin, who commissioned us to create an identity and website.

The Logo is allegorical of the fundamental nature of casting — picking one from many. There are fourteen versions — one for every unique letter, each with a different letter having been ‘picked’.

All of the logos will be used in various places, from stationery and  business cards to the website and emails.

More on this project soon.

The recent rebranding of Myspace is notable in many ways, but it’s also a good example of genuinely good work that shouldn’t be so rare and notable.

Unfortunately design is one of the professions in which amateurs are increasingly commonplace. Though all they’re really doing is what used to be called ‘desktop publishing’.

Such aesthetic crimes are the result of getting anyone with a GCSE in art and a computer to bash out a logo, and is particularly prevalent for online business start-ups. The process typically becoming a combination of safe, obvious ideas and a distinct lack of simplicity that leaves projects largely doomed, concepts ultimately dumbed-down and logos eventually replaced.

This is where the likes of these are born:

Myspace though, with this much-needed rebrand, have bucked the trend, especially for an online-only company and (though it’s not absolutely perfect) got some proper design work done that could be genuinely effective, memorable and long-lasting.

The logo itself

The concept is great. Timeless, memorable and instant, it uses just the right amount of humour and tells a story that explains the brand in a surprising and understandable way.

It is flexible and customisable, and can become a point of interaction for users: the relaunched site has a feature that lets you create your own version of the logo and submit it to a public gallery. But, simpler than that, it explains that Myspace is now about possibilities and discovering, rather than just being friends and sharing pictures.

Identities and logos need to be unique and simple in order to stand out and take on the character of the entity they represent. Next to the simplistic obviousness of the other social media logos (and 90% of all logos), Myspace now has that.

However, this rebrand is an effective one not just because it replaces a terrible logo with a great one (and is backed up by a coherent, consistent identity and updated website) but because it also signals a switch to focusing on music and events rather than being ‘a place for friends’ as the old slogan proclaimed. This is crucial because it may enable it to more happily co-exist with facebook. And it’s also important because to a large extent they’re doing it properly in terms of design.

Wonky type

Though the logo concept is brilliant, the treatment of the type is unsympathetic and quite bizarre, and is particularly evident in the version of the logo that features the full name. Not only does it appear to be set in a mixture of at least two typefaces (or a heavily mangled Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk), but the size of some letters seems to have been altered. The s is squashed and appears too short and light next to the p, the y is incredibly ugly, and all the edges have been strangely curved. It almost looks like it’s been ‘auto-traced’ in illustrator.

This results in a ‘fuzzy’ effect at small sizes, and appears to be just a fun indulgence on the part of the designer.

Even apart from the ugly type, this version of the logo seems quite unnecessary and only serves to undermine the ‘other’ version: either ‘my____’ works or it doesn’t, they shouldn’t need one that makes it more clear. Using this in some places may hinder the rebrand hugely. Its existence  just seems very conservative and worried.

Essentially, Myspace has grown up. And though it’s a shame about the wonky lettering, and the version with the full name, it’s a huge improvement.

The artwork has just gone off to print for a promotional brochure we’ve been creating for Point101. It’s been good to get involved in making something physical for Point101 after having created their extensive, system-heavy website. So while we wait for the finished product to arrive here’s a sneak-peak at some of the sketches, development and mockups involved in the design process.

The brochure is A5 and has 16 pages, which allows each of the four products to have a spread of its own, with additional spreads used for an introduction, a spread about the website’s upload system and finally customer testimonials.

Sketches on paper —the ONLY way to begin print projects— were then developed in detail on the computer. This involves rationalising the content into a flexible grid structure, designing the typography, selecting and editing placeholder images and implementing the first draft of the copy.

A printed mockup (complete with staples) lets us get a feel for the brochure spread-by-spread in terms of content, decide on the most suitable order for the products, make minor text improvements and check that we are happy with all the images.

We’re all really pleased with the layout and are sure that for new customers this will be an accessible, straightforward overview of Point101′s products and prices.

As ever, apologies for quick photography. Look out for photos of the final brochure in the coming weeks.

In some ways it’s not a huge surprise that the boutiques, shops and galleries in the very much creative/art/craft-focussed Columbia Road – which on Sundays transforms into the hectic flower market, the only day that most of the shops are open – all have fine shopfronts and signs.

Yet it’s fairly rare in the present climate (of faceless commerce and the proliferation of amateur/do-it-yourself graphic design) to find even one genuinely well-composed bit of type on the front of a non high-street shop.

London’s Columbia Road bucks this trend many times over, with almost all of the façades (there’s still the inevitable Londis letting the side down) featuring a fine awareness of  type, composition and colour.

Some are especially beautiful (Supernice, Doxi, Given) and a couple are very nice if not perfect (Openhouse, Milagros), but most are wonderfully simple and all possess immense personality. Design, in this visual sense, is ultimately about suggesting character.

Apologies for some quick photography and strange angles..

Olly spends many a weekend sailing the family boat in various amateur races around the choppy waters of the Solent. The boat is called Jynnan Tonnyx, a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy reference, a reference that we referenced (!) when creating a logo for it.

The various graphics that have been used over the years for the book/film/tapes/teatowels led us to a nice bit of typography on the poster for the 2005 film.

This inspired a bespoke typeface in the same geometric style. Wanting to avoid being too literal/cheap with the visual reference, we made sure it was different enough. Set on two lines and in capitals, the two words of the name have a natural geometry, and this in turn gives the logo a nice aspect ratio (rather then being long and thin), which is helpful in applying the logo to t-shirts, jackets, and of course the boat. Here it is lovely and large on the hull:

All they need to do now is win some races!