Progress with Daisy's Branding

Here is my progression since last time. Daisy liked the key idea, but I thought it looked quite dated and didn't really reflect her as a designer, the key said feminine and ornate, and her work isn't really either of those things, it's quite gender neutral, or at least has to appeal to both genders. It's also not very nouveau, which is how the key was starting to look. So I spent around 3 hours without any passion left for this project, struggling to bring it back from the brink. I got no where with this approach so I needed another meeting with Daisy to reclarify, affirm my position a little more strongly and give her advice on what she needs to have for the design to put across what she's about as simply as possible.



So after this meeting I felt a little better, although she wanted me to try using a skull, I wasn't keen, her work has skulls permeating through it of all various kinds, and I don't think one skull would surmise this, it would also make her work feel very one dimensional, i.e. everything is about skulls, which is selling herself short. I started to look at the high-end fashion brands she has recommended to me as research:

Comme Des Garcons:


Vivienne Westwood:


Alexander McQueen:


There isn't enough bleed around the Alexander McQueen logo to make it look fully resolved in this image, and I'm also not keen on the logo it's self, the way the 'c' and the 'q' work together doesn't feel that satisfying. But in general terms, there is a unifying theme, type driven, black and white, despite their work being of equal degrees colourful and macabre at times, the label it's self is very simple, saying what it needs ot through the very basic communication of type-based logoform. I feel like I was over-complicating the brief before this, trying to cram too much into one logo. It was a revelation to work simply, all along Daisy and myself were both satisfied with the type or at least the direction the type is heading in.


So I took that, and drove forward, I did try using a skull, but I think my head wasn't into doing it because I knew ultimately this was the wrong way to go. I started playing with xrays at first to sort of satisfy this need for the dark. I realised that I could get this through the colour choices I made, i.e. using black immedietely has this sophisticated/macabre tone.


I started messing around with the composition in terms of where the lettering is in her name, breaking it up into D for Daisy and then SW for the double barrel of Shayler-Webb. I thought that this would provide more of a dynamic than the flat lettering and quickly got to the conclusion of using a ligature for the S and W to unify them, rather than a hyphen. I got to a point where I was satisfied and started mocking up some quick business cards form it. I quickly realised, however, that the type felt too heavy on the page. I reduced the line weight and this felt more resolved. It felt a lot more like a fashion label and less like a graphic design company, which it looked like in bold.


And below is the final logo full bleed, I decided to go with the rectangle rather than the circle, because it looked more sophisticated and classic than a circle, which to me represents a very youth (i.e. too young) orientated appeal. I do quite like the border around it too. I think it increases the sophisticated/high fashion element to it. I also think that it needs to sit in this amount of negative space or more to maintain a minimal feel that will let the quite full on designs speak for themselves.



OK so now I have to show Daisy and see what she says about them. I think she'll be quite satisfied, but I imagine she'll want more colour, so I'll have to fight my ground on that one.