A few months ago, we entered into our second session of logo re-envisioning and re-branding for Red McCombs Media, where I am very lucky to be the Creative Manager. Red McCombs Media is one of top 5000 fastest growing companies in the United States, as published recently by Inc. magazine. We focus on ensuring our clients get the most bang for their buck.
We’re the guys who serve up (and sometimes design) the banner ads that let you know a big Hollywood film is being released or let you know about a local, targeted marketing campaign may be happening for your favorite cable provide. We’re pervasive. We’re good at what we do. And we didn’t have a logo that really helped us show that.
The problem is – as with any logo re-envisioning: what do we want to say about ourselves and how much of that can truly be done with a logo?
Powerful. Strong. Can you get tech in there?
No, you can’t get tech in there. At least, not without having a logo that’s too representational. I’m not a designer that’s adverse to a representational logo…when it fits the project.
If your company sells sneakers, well, you may just get a logo with a pair of shoes in it. Or maybe not. Because there’s an artistry to creating something that’s familiar, that inspires a feeling or a concept, but isn’t necessarily on the nose. Some of the greatest logos you can think of, those that have endeared throughout the fall of hand-drawn iconography to computer-based website creation, don’t show what the company does.
Nike. McDonalds. Apple. Need I go on? None of these logos have anything to do with what product the company sells, yet, you know them. Like you know the face of your mother. This is power. This is logo design at its finest.
So when the goal is to create something memorable, that stands out, and that looks nice – what do you do? We’ve already decided to throw out something that would look like a computer or a mouse or a mouse cursor. Already, I think you can envision these and see why those are logos that wouldn’t stand the test of time.
A maelstrom of color? No thanks!
Now, I don’t wanna’ step on anyone’s toes here, but there’s a trend with tech companies or media companies – and that’s to give you one of those logos with a circle of some sort, using many shades of the rainbow, all coming together.
These logos look great. I love a lot of them, and did think of going down that road. Afterall, that’s the trend for a media company. I understand the reason why designers do this: because the concept of “media” isn’t one that’s easy to grasp, especially when media can be anything from an .mp3 file to an actual piece of 16mm celluloid.
But all media involves color. Either through the use of subtractive/additive color methods or via the images we conjur up in our own heads when aurally pleasured by our favorite bands. So the big ball of colors is where it usually ends up.
One of my favorite sites is LogoPond, a great resource for designers to get that much needed inspiration. LogoPond lets us see how other people are tackling similar problems like we’re having, letting us see what solutions they came up with. If you visit the site and look through some of the submissions for the last few months, you’ll see these sorts of logos start to pop-up.
Diag 1: South Creative Logo
One of the best and memorable versions of this logo-type is over at Gold Coast Creative. Trevor Curtis, the lead designer for the company, has done a smashing job of making the logo feel distinctive, original, and very much tangible.
But, when there’s already such good examples out there why try to re-invent the wheel? At best, I’ll have something almost as good, but a design that I know was heavily inspired by the solution others had come up with to fix the creative/media concept problem. Not my own answer.
What were the requirements?
A few things had to be present in the logo. These were elements the Sales & Marketing Team knew would be important to push our brand through the clutter of our competitors.
- Big focus on the concept/color of RED. Red McCombs is an amazingly successful businessman, and his involvement with the company is important
- Easily recognizable and memorable (like all logos should be)
- Legible
- Be strong
- Be creative
- Inspire Confidence
As time went on, a couple of other not necessary, but “nice to have” elements came into play:
- Try to get the concept of “On Point” across
- Media, if possible, shouldn’t be relegated to a second-place position
- Be simple
Some things, like making sure the logo worked in single color as well as multi, to make sure it worked in all sizes from huge, billboard to small business card, and everything in between, were a given. I’ll do a lesson on this soon, as I think it’s an important factor that a lot of designers forget, and the one time I chose to ignore some of these (on purpose) it resulted in more work later on and an eventual decision by me to forego my previous attempts. But more on that some other time.
What did I do?
Now that I had my requirements, now that I had done massive amounts of research at every logo and website you can imagine, opened up Adobe Illustrator, created a new document, and began playing.
Pretty quick, after going through a couple of fonts in LinoType Font Explorer, I realized I wanted a geometric font.
WikiPedia defines a geometric font as: ” Lineale typefaces constructed on simple geometric shapes, circle or rectangle. Usually monoline, and often with single-storey a.”
Diag 2: Gotham Font Bold
Basically – Futura, ITC Avant Garde, Century Gothic and most importantly, Gotham.
I played with lots of them. Futura is great, but I used that to brand the film Number Seventy Four in E-Flat. ITC Avant Garde is also great, but I used that during my tenure as the General Manager for Beecon, SCAD Student Television.
Plus, with each of these fonts…there was just something missing. Something I’d always been trying to get to, an aesthetic, a look, particularly in when in uppercase, that I’d never been able to achieve. Gotham fixed this. Century Gothic and Bell Gothic had both been used on a few printed peices for RMM over the course of the last year, and so it was clear the company’s branding and messaging worked well when a geometric font was chosen.
Gotham is a gorgeously elegant font. In its many faces, it can be clean, simple, and delicate, and when you get stronger, it can suddenly become a powerhouse presence. The font reminds me very much of the best of the best political fonts, and as it turns out, it’s all over the Barack Obama website. My adoration for the designer of this site, whomever they may be, is without bounds. I’m digressing.
So it was Gotham. For sure. The company signed off on the face, and so, that part of the job was finished and easily done.
Making of the Mark
Next came the far tougher job. What is the visual element that goes along with the chosen font. What’s the mark that can stand on its own, that can become synonymous with the company’s name, ideals, products and practices.
Diag 3: Red McCombs Media Logo
Encapsule
Diag 4: Red McCombs Media Logo
Billboard
Diag 5: Red McCombs Media Logo
Creative Fire
Diag 6: Red McCombs Media Logo
The Ribbon
Diag 7: Red McCombs Media Logo
On Point
Diag 8: Red McCombs Media Logo
Playtime
Diag 9: Red McCombs Media Logo
Gestalt
Diag 10: Red McCombs Media Logo
The Cube
Diagram 3: Encapsule – Red. That’s probably the first thing you’ll notice. Both in the color, obviously, but also with the mark itself. Using the Gotham font in its medium weight, I chose to create an interesting encapsulating symbol and then knock-out the logo itself.
Red McCombs Media offers a suite of Media Solutions, and for a period, we tossed around the concept of sub-branding each with the moniker of “Red.” With the encapsulated mark, branding would have been a cinch. Sub-brands would have easily been built, utilizing variations of the corporate logo and keeping the brand familiar.
Diagram 4: Billboard – As mentioned previously, RMM is an Internet Media Advertising company. Meaning banner ads, rich media, etc. The goal with the billboard logo was to build a strong, powerful mark that would be slightly reminiscent of the banner advertisements the company pushes out to the world. In addition, my goal was to create something that had a slightly timeless and marginally retro feel to the piece. With this font, using this particular block/perspective layout, the exudes a 1950s feel.
Diagram 5: Creative Fire – Sometimes the best way to create a distinctive, memorable mark is to just find a great treatment for the first letter of the name. You’ve seen it everywhere and that’s because it’s a tried and true method.
RMM does a lot of creative. I’m constantly designing websites for new companies, banners for use all over the nation, and even logos for search engines or other properties. One of the desires for our logo was to show our creativity, and coupling the steadfastness of the letter logo with the concept of the “creative fire” helped to generate a very distinctive mark. Additional hopes for the sub-branding of products would be handled via different elements producing the counterform of the letter.
Diagram 6: The Ribbon – RMM logo v2.0 featured the use of a “ribbon” style treatment, creating the letter M. When the time came to update the logo with v3.0, I wanted to re-visit the concept of the ribbon. Modify it, make it sharper and edgier. Out of all the concepts I did for RMM v3.0, this one still remains one of my favorites. I adore the placement of the words in juxtaposition of the ribbon mark itself, as well as the three-dimensional nature of the piece.
Diagram 7: On Point – The logo that would be. This should be familiar from the Diagram 1. The goal of this logo was to specifically address the idea of being “On Point” and in particular, being able to get straight to the nitty-gritty with a client’s needs. Like with other concepts, sub-branding was brought into this, with the decision to either change the encapsulating symbol or what was within the symbol itself.
After a few discussions, the symbol was modified to point to the “McCombs Media” label, as seen in the final logo.
Diagram 8: Playtime – Also playing off the concept of “creative fire,” the overall desire for this logo was to be slightly more playful. There was a time when a serif font was considered to be more elegant. This can still hold true in many cases, but through the different uses of serif fonts on the internet, it’s actually taken on a more playful usage. Garamond in this case, onf of my favorite serifs.
To assist this, I played with the leading and kerning, bringing the letter-forms close together. Using lowercase letters finished this one out.
Diagram 9: Gestalt – Like with the the “Playtime” logo, the use of the serif font kept this one playful. However, mixing the sans-serif, geometric Gotham coupled with the serif Garamond for the mark itself added a level of sophistication.
On the mark, I’d noticed the obvious similarities between the curvature of the R and the M forms. By overlapping and layering these onto each other, the mark engages the mind to decipher the three letters. It works both as a solid straight mark, and three separate letters.
Diagram 10: Encapsule – Another retro mark in design. The goal was to knock-out the letters themselves from a larger, solid block. The logo works, and is a strong mark, but the ultimate problem is the potential for being misread as MRM rather than as RMM.
