Logotype- Initial Research

Brief:

Produce a series of logotypes for a rebrand of your given company. Using only type, experiment with scale, stroke, spacing, contrast and alignment to interpret your company. You should consider the following:

Who is the company?
What do they do?
Who is the target audience?
Where will the logo appear?

Initial Research

"Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest."

- Vignelli's 6 basic typefaces.

The typefaces he chose were the best are: Garamond; Bodoni; Century; Futura; Helvetica and Times New Roman. 

Research into chosen font Garamond

The word I was given to turn into a company was 'Diddle', when I looked into the meaning of the word a few came up.

- 'To steal money from someone by cheating'

- 'To spend time doing something or handling something in an aimless way'

- 'To totter as a child walking'

- 'Pass time aimlessly or unproductively'

- 'Deliberately falsify'

- 'To cheat or swindle someone so as to deprive them of something'

My first thoughts of companies from looking at this definition were casinos and loan shops, based on the idea of cheating someone or depriving them of money. However, they would not make very appealing company names if the consumer knew what the word meant, they would also be very un-interesting from my perspective to look into and produce research and outcomes as I do not know much about these type of companies. Therefore, I thought more about the definition 'pass time aimlessly or unproductively' and thought of companies like bars, cafes, book shops and record stores as these were a nicer more sensitive approach to the word definition. I have chosen to go with a book shop as the idea of passing time aimlessly, which then creates a relaxed environment, enabling you to pass time without feeling guilty. Book shops can be very formal and sophisticated, so I am going to target this book shop at ages around 30-60. 

I have chosen to use the font Garamond for my logotype firstly because it is described as the 'typeface that lives on paper', it is also used in every Harry Potter book making it the perfect font for a bookshop. Secondly, Garamond is a serif font which automatically gives it a formal and well established feel to it as I want the book shop to give off the impression it has been around for a long time but also the idea you need to stop what you are doing and let time pass perhaps unproductively. 

First hand research of existing bookshops around Leeds- showing examples of how their logos are shown on shopfronts and signs.