Do Good Design

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve joined a group here in Stromness that’s starting up an artists’ cooperative called The Sorting Room. We’re set to open in May alongside the Orkney Folk Festival, and need to have bags and tags ready. And that means we need a logo.

I love designing logos.

Logos are the instant snapshot of your business or organisation. The challenge of transforming some words like “decadent” and “welcoming” into a few shapes and letters that actually convey that idea is one that really gets my energy and creativity flowing.

For The Sorting Room, I had to start with the building itself, which is an old post office “sorting room” (i.e., the area where they would sort the mail for delivery).

Researching before designing a logo

I did some digging into when the building was built, and managed to track down a photograph which showed men standing outside in clothing straight from the Edwardian period, 1900-1910.

I had a look at some books of historical Orkney postcards, and grabbed one showing a stamp and postmark from the post office from 1908.

The British Postal Museum & Archive gave me some more background on the style of post in the early 1900s, and I also searched some of the V&A Museum’s online collection for posters, ceramics, and other daily artefacts.

Logo keywords and mood

My brief was to create a logo that embodied some of these moods or qualities:

• rooted in history
• decadent
• diversity
• celebration
• journey
• traditional/modern
• quality crafted
• organic
• welcoming

But I felt that the history of the building had to be there in the logo.

Ideally, the logo should only use one colour, so we can print it cheaply on our cotton bags we’ll be using instead of plastic bags.

And finally, rather than create an icon, some image like a swoosh or hand or whatever, I felt the letters and words of the The Sorting Room should take centre stage.

The Sorting Room logo #1: stamp motif

Here’s one of the 3 designs I came up with, in black and white:

The logos are on a brown paper background, since we’re hoping to wrap our gifts in brown paper.

You can see the strong influence and link to the antique stamps and I’ve used the actual postmark as well — the mark was made originally in 1908 and says “08″. Given that we’re opening in 2008, I think it makes a nice touch and connection to the past.

To keep it from being too oldy-worldy, the “Cooperative” word is in a very modern font, and the layout is also modern.

Applying colour to a logo last

To avoid getting hung up on debates on colour, it’s useful to show a black and white version first. This way, you can try out a variety of colours if needed.

We don’t have a set colour palette, but since “celebration” and “diversity” were two of my keywords for the brief, orange might be a good choice since according to colour psychology, colour combines the warmth and dynamism of red with the welcoming nature of sunny yellow:

There are 2 other logo designs, and I’ll be presenting all 3 at our next members’ meeting next Thursday. We’ll see what everyone thinks then, but it’s been a great few days designing.